Pirates blow 5-2 lead, lose 6-5 in 10 innings

The Pirates blew a 5-2 lead with two outs in the ninth against the Reds, then lost in the 10th after a homer by Joey Votto.

Francisco Liriano gave up a run in the first, but Jose Tabata and Neil Walker led off the bottom of the inning with back-to-back homers to make it 2-1.

In the fourth, Marlon Byrd had a one-out walk, and was followed by singles from Pedro Alvarez, Russell Martin and Jordy Mercer, bringing home two more runs. Todd Frazier homered in the fifth, but the Pirates were still up 4-2. They tacked on an insurance run in the seventh on Jose Tabata's RBI single.

In the bottom of the eighth, Sam LeCure hit Andrew McCutchen with a two-seamer, and both benches were warned. Both Clint Hurdle and Dusty Baker came out to argue (with separate umpires, not with each other; if you've ever fantasized about a two-manager, two-umpire menage a quatre, I hope you didn't go out tonight). Hurdle ended up getting ejected.

Anyway, if the next half hour hadn't ended up happening, I'm sure that would be all we would have talked about tomorrow, with all kinds of realpolitik and violent revenge nonsense because a lot of us are really tough, RAWR! Instead, the Pirates pulled Liriano after eight, which some fans took issue with, but which I thought was fine. (As it turns out, Liriano actually told the Pirates he was done.)

Mark Melancon came on to pitch the ninth with a 5-2 lead and gave up three runs but didn't pitch nearly as badly as that figure suggests. With two outs and a man on, Todd Frazier reached on an error by Jordy Mercer, scoring a run. Then Zack Cozart singled, and was replaced by Billy Hamilton, who's so fast he makes a 16-year-old on his prom night look like Sting. Hamilton, representing the tying run, stole second, then came all the way home (along with Frazier) when Devin Mesoraco hit a ground ball to third that bounced off the glove of a diving Pedro Alvarez. Puke. Then, after the Pirates failed to score in their half of the ninth, Kyle Farnsworth gave up a line-drive, opposite-field homer to Votto to make it 6-5.

Anyway, this was an extremely tough loss, and there's bad blood flowing to boot. Be nice in the comments, y'all!