The Pirates and Giants made history in the oddest way as an overturned replay gave the Bucs their fifth walk-off of the season in a 2-1 victory on Tuesday night.
With two outs in the ninth, Starling Marte hit a Tim Hudson fastball off of the Clemente wall for an apparent triple. The relay throw went to third, but went past third basemen Pablo Sandoval. Marte then took off towards the plate and slid head-first at catcher Buster Posey. Posey applied the tag and home plate umpire Quinn Wolcott called Starling out.
The play was challenged by Clint Hurdle and after a minute and fourteen second review, the umpiring crew in New York City ruled Marte’s hand slid onto the plate before the tag was made ending the ballgame.
“I knew I was safe,” said Marte. “If you saw the replay, my hand hit before the tag.”
Posey felt the tag, but wasn’t sure on the overturned call.
“Honestly, looking at it, I mean, it’s really close,” said Posey. “I feel like, most of the plays that I’ve seen that could go either way stay with the call on the field.”
It is the first time in Major League history that a ballgame was ended on a replay reversal.
It wasn’t as positive in the Giants locker room where Hudson — who started and went the distance — received the tough luck loss from this.
” That’s the kind of baseball that we live in, I guess, now a days with the replay,” said Hudson. “What the outcome is going to be till you get the final conclusion, I guess. I’ve never been a fan of [Replay] from the beginning. It is what it is. We’ve got to accept the things that go with it. We were just on the wrong end of a call tonight that cost us the ballgame.”
Charlie Morton exercised his “big inning” demons going eight strong innings while only allowing one unearned run. Morton’s only blemish on the line score came in the second inning when Brandon Belt singled to start the inning. He then stole second and advanced to third when Tony Sanchez’s throw went into centerfield. Ehire Adrianza got him home on a sac fly to center.
“Nobody was more pumped than Charlie about his outing,” said Hurdle. “To give us eight fantastic innings. The pitches he made to the top four hitters are as good of sequences that I’ve seen him make or maybe they have seen. He had those guys, there were some hard at bats. There was some good pitching, he hit his spots, he changes speeds. There was some challenges down below occasionally, but as far as attacking the top of the lineup, the guys that scored eight runs last night, very effective.”
Marte also scored the Pirates first run of the night in the second when he singled with one out, moved to third on an Ike Davis — 2-for-3 with a double — single and scored on a Tony Sanchez groundout.
Final Score: Pirates 2, Giants 1
Starters Lines
Morton (ND): 8 IN, 3 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 2 BB, 3 K’s, 2 HBP, 1 WP. 107 Pitches (65 Strikes).
Hudson (L, 4-2): 8 2/3 IN, 4 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 4 K’s, 1 HBP. 108 Pitches (74 Strikes).
These two will look to take the series tomorrow afternoon in the final game of the three-game set.
Tomorrow’s Starters
(RHP) Gerrit Cole (PIT): 2-2, 3.69 ERA
(RHP) Tim Lincecum (SF): 2-1, 5.12 ERA
First pitch is set for 12:35.
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(Photo Credit: Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)
