PITTSBURGH _ Max Moroff's walk-off single, the third such hit for the Pirates in six days, gave the Pirates a 3-2 victory against the Milwaukee Brewers at PNC Park Wednesday.
Josh Harrison's one-out double against Jared Hughes in the 10th inning bounced over the center-field wall. Given the open base, the Brewers intentionally walked Andrew McCutchen to face John Jaso.
Hughes got Jaso to line out to center, but Harrison advanced to third. Moroff singled to center to end the game.
The game was tied at 1 until Domingo Santana, who also singled and doubled Wednesday, hit the second pitch from Juan Nicasio out to right field leading off the eighth. The Pirates' bullpen had a 1.68 ERA in July, the best in the majors in the month, entering Wednesday's game.
The Pirates recouped the run in the ninth against All-Star closer Corey Knebel. David Freese worked a one-out walk. With two strikes, Gregory Polanco rolled a ball into right field, sending pinch-runner Moroff to third.
Francisco Cervelli had already been on base three times when he came to the plate in the ninth. He flared a soft single into shallow right field, enough to bring Moroff home and tie the score.
The 24,401 fans at PNC Park Wednesday night can be forgiven if they diagnosed Cole's outing as a bad one after the first few batters. A leadoff double, men on base, an error to compound it all _ it looked like some of Cole's more problematic starts from earlier this season.
Except it didn't. The results masked the stuff in the first inning, but the stuff broke through after that. Pitching down in the zone with excellent fastball command, Cole struck out 10 batters, a season high, without issuing a walk in seven innings of one-run ball.
Through five innings, Cole struck out nine batters. Six of them were looking. Five of those six looked at his fastball. He found the outside corner against lefties, getting Eric Thames looking at a fastball and Travis Shaw to go down on a slider.
Deciding that ground balls were more democratic, Cole induced three of them in a 1-2-3 inning sixth.
Two of the three hits he allowed in the first were well-placed ground balls and Cervelli's throwing error moved a runner to third. Jesus Aguilar, batting third Wednesday with Ryan Braun out, singled to drive in Santana.
After that Cole struck out two batters in each of the next four innings. He retired the final seven batters he faced.
Davies matched Cole. He allowed one unearned run and completed seven innings in 89 pitches.
"We've seen Davies enough now that at least we're aware of him," Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said before the game. "We need to get him up, we need to not try and jump fastballs, we need to be aware that the changeup's a real pitch."
The Pirates answered with a run in the bottom of the first, in similar fashion. Starling Marte and Josh Harrison both singled and Orlando Arcia's throwing error put the runners on second and third. Andrew McCutchen's sacrifice fly tied the game.
Davies allowed scoring chances in the second and fourth innings, but no runs. Cervelli broke for home on Cole's second-inning bunt with runners on the corners, but Davies flipped the ball to catcher Jett Bandy for the out. First and second, one out, in the fourth went nowhere _ just as Jordy Mercer struck out swinging, Bandy threw out Freese at third on a double steal attempt.
