Rays edge Pirates in walk-off fashion

Isaac Paredes delivered a two-run single with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning to lift the Tampa Bay Rays to a 6-5 walk-off win over the Pittsburgh Pirates Saturday at Tropicana Field.

It was the Bucs’ second walk-off loss to the Rays in as many days.

Paredes’ base hit made a loser out of Pirates closer David Bednar, who suffered his third blown save of the season.

Bednar struggled with his command throughout the ninth, going to three-ball counts on the first four hitters but managing to retire the first two .

Bednar then walked Ji-Man Choi and Vidal Brujan – the latter of who was hitting well under .200 entering the game – to put runners at first and second.

Jonathan Aranda then hit a sharp one-hopper back to Bednar, who had trouble corralling it and ultimately chose not to make a throw to first, and that left the bases loaded. Paredes, whose homer off Chase De Jong in the eight narrowed the Pirates’ lead to 5-4, followed with a base hit to right scoring both Choi and Brujan to give the Rays the win.

Afterward, Bednar told reporters he just didn’t have great command of his fastball. “I put myself in bad counts and bad situations,” he said. “I was just a hair off.”

The Pirates got a quality start from JT Brubaker, who gave up nine hits and three earned runs while striking out six in six innings. He did not walk a batter.

Brujan’s two-run single in the first gave the Rays a 2-0 lead, but the Pirates tied it in the third on Diego Castillo’s solo homer off Corey Kluber and Bryan Reynolds’ RBI single.

It was Castillo’s seventh home run of the season and fifth in his last 11 games.

Randy Arozarena’s RBI double off Brubaker in the fifth gave Tampa Bay a 3-2 lead, but Pirates rookie outfielder Jack Suwinski erased that and then some when he hit a mammoth 443-foot three-run homer in the sixth off lefty reliever Jalen Beeks, giving the Bucs a 5-3 lead.

Suwinski, who leads all rookies in home runs with 12, also made a circus catch down the left field line in the sixth inning, tumbling over the low wall to snag a fly ball off the bat of Luke Raley.