Bucs lose to Nationals 3-2 on late homer

The Pittsburgh Pirates lost their fourth game in a row on Monday night, falling to the Washington Nationals 3-2 after carrying a 2-1 lead into the eighth inning.

It was there that Luis Garcia led off with a double off of reliver Chris Stratton, who then got the next two outs before giving up a two-run homer to Maikel Franco, a 418-foot blast that ended Pittsburgh’s hopes for squashing their losing streak.

The Pirates did put one on in the ninth on a Josh VanMeter double with one out, but Michael Perez and Hoy Park flyouts closed out the Buccos’ threat and sent them to defeat.

Before that, Pittsburgh scored runs on a VanMeter sac-fly and also on Oneil Cruz’s first homer of the year, which gave Pittsburgh a 2-1 lead in the fifth.

Miguel Yajure had the surprise start and wasn’t awful, going four innings, giving up no runs on four hits and three walks, but Yerry De Los Santos gave up a run in the sixth before Stratton blew the game and took the loss for Pittsburgh to move to 4-4 on the season.

The Pirates will look to bounce back tonight, but the team is struggling to close out wins right now after losing several close ones to the Tampa Bay Rays as well. This is the third one-run loss of the four-game losing streak.

Tonight’s game is at 7:05pm.