Pirates walk off against Phillies, 1-0

So the Pirates kicked off a series against the Phillies with Kevin Correia and Jeff Locke on the hill, and what they got was ... well, a pitchers' duel, obviously. After a long rain delay, Correia and Locke began trading scoreless innings. A pitcher-friendly strike zone helped, and Locke got help thanks to nice catches at the wall by both Andrew McCutchen and Gregory Polanco, but give Correia and Locke some credit -- they each scattered their fair share of singles, but kept runs off the board.

Then came the relievers. The Pirates had runners on base constantly against the Phillies but couldn't seem to score, notably leaving the bases loaded against Ken Giles in the eighth. Then three batters reached base against Mark Melancon in the ninth, but the Phillies gave up two outs on the bases sacrificing and getting caught stealing, and Melancon got Chase Utley to ground out to end the inning. Then in the 10th, Jared Hughes let two Phillies reach base, but Josh Harrison saved the game with a great barehand play on a soft grounder by Jeff Francoeur.

The Bucs loaded the bases against Jeanmar Gomez in the 10th, but then Corey Hart came up with two outs and, naturally, whiffed. This was all very bad news -- this was the kind of game the Pirates always seemed to lose, and it was hard to avoid the impression that all the clinging on they were doing was for naught.

And on and on it went, with Rob Scahill and then Antonio Bastardo doing the pitching. Finally, in the 13th, Chris Stewart hit an infield single, moved up on a grounder, and then Starling Marte hit a slow grounder up the middle that both the Phillies' middle infielders dove at and missed. Finally, the Pirates had a walk-off win after so many walk-offs against them this season. Here's hoping karma brings them many more.