Nick Gonzales singles in 9th, Pirates rally for walk-off win over Phillies

When the Pittsburgh Pirates rallied twice from early deficits to tie the Philadelphia Phillies, it didn’t just keep them in the game. It provided a belief that the best team in baseball was beatable.

The Pirates believed that, even as manager Derek Shelton’s decision to rest Mitch Keller and Paul Skenes and instead start lefty Martin Perez backfired. They continued to believe it, even when the Phillies won a challenge to overturn a call that ended a seventh-inning rally.

They believed it most when they scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth, capped by a Nick Gonzales single to score Andrew McCutchen for an 8-7 walk-off win before a sellout crowd of 39,530 at PNC Park to stretch their winning streak to five games.

The Pirates moved above .500 for the first time since April 24.

The Phillies (62-35) scored three runs in the first inning and added another run in the third, only for the Pirates to tie it up in the bottom half of both innings. Still, the Phillies had a three-run lead going into the seventh and a one-run lead entering the ninth.

“I think it would’ve been really easy to fold after the first inning, especially going against the Phillies,” said Gonzales, whose first career walk-off hit was a single in the 10th inning of a 7-6 win over the San Francisco Giants on May 21. “But nobody here in the dugout, nobody in this clubhouse did that.”

Trailing by one run in the ninth, Connor Joe hit a leadoff single off Phillies lefty Jose Alvarado and McCutchen followed by drawing a walk. With Michael A. Taylor pinch running for Joe, the Pirates then executed a double steal to put both runners in scoring position with All-Star outfielder Bryan Reynolds at the plate.

Alvarado got Reynolds swinging at a cutter low and inside for a strikeout. But Oneil Cruz hit a bouncer to second baseman Edmundo Sosa, and Taylor beat the throw to the plate to score the tying run. Gonzales then smacked a single to left to seal the win.

The Pirates (49-48) wanted to start the second half the way they finished the first, after winning six of their final seven and sweeping the Chicago White Sox to reach .500 for the first time since April 27.

“That’s huge, especially coming out of the All-Star break,” said Pirates first baseman Rowdy Tellez, who set a franchise record with three sacrifice flies. “Sometimes you play a little flat. But keep it going, get above .500, and hopefully we carry that momentum into every game we go into.”

Not since April 13, 2015, when the Pirates drew 39,933 for a 5-4 win over the Detroit Tigers in the home opener, have so many spectators packed the park to see the Pirates in a non-playoff game. Many of them were Phillies fans who traveled across the state.

“The Commonwealth came out tonight — on both sides,” Shelton said, with a laugh. “They were into it, and they were loud. It was really impressive.”

Before the game, Shelton defended his decision to save Keller and Skenes for the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday and Tuesday, respectively, and go with Perez. The decision drew the ire of Pirates fans who wanted to see Skenes after he pitched a scoreless first inning for the National League in Tuesday’s All-Star Game.

Shelton said before the game that he wanted to give Skenes “a day or two to catch his breath” after a week of All-Star festivities and travel and “a couple extra days” between starts for Keller after he threw 57 pitches over three innings Sunday.

But Perez struggled with his command early, throwing only 16 of his first 30 pitches for strikes, and allowed three runs in the first inning and a solo home run in the third. Perez allowed six runs on seven hits and two walks with four strikeouts on 82 pitches over 3 2/3 innings as his ERA climbed to 5.61 in 15 starts.

After striking out leadoff batter Kyle Schwarber, Perez walked Trea Turner, gave up a single to Bryce Harper on a soft grounder to third and walked Alec Bohm on four pitches to load the bases.

Nick Castellanos hit a sharp grounder past third for a double and two-run lead, and Weston Wilson hit a bouncer to third that went off Ke’Bryan Hayes’ glove to score Bohm and make it 3-0.

“That’s just the nature of this game,” Gonzales said. “You’ve got 26 guys out here. Not every guy is going to be on their ‘A’ game every single day. That’s what we’ve got to do, pick each other up — whether the offense is down, pitching is down, defense is down, whatever it is.”

The Pirates answered with three runs of their own in the bottom of the first. McCutchen hit a leadoff single through short, Reynolds singled to right-center and Cruz followed with an RBI double off the center-field fence with an exit velocity of 120.5 mph to cut it to 3-1. Reynolds scored on Gonzales’ groundout to short, and Tellez hit a sacrifice fly to left to drive in Cruz to tie it.

Wilson sent Perez’s 1-1 sinker on the inside corner 384 feet to left field, where it sailed just over the glove of Reynolds for his first home run of the season to give the Phillies a 4-3 lead.

Again, the Pirates tied it in the bottom of the inning. Cruz led off by roping a 113.5 mph double to right field, advanced to third on a Gonzales groundout and scored when Tellez lined out to right for another sac fly to make it 4-4. Cruz, who went 3 for 5 with three RBIs, has five of the six instances in club history of two hits recorded at exit velocities of 113 mph or higher.

After Cristian Pache hit a leadoff single, Turner drilled a 2-2 sinker 388 feet for another home run just over the outstretched arm of Reynolds in left to give the Phillies a 6-4 lead.

The Phillies added to their advantage in the fifth, when Kyle Nicolas sandwiched a pair of walks around a single to load the bases and Schwarber drove in Sosa with a sacrifice fly to right to make it 7-4.

The Pirates rallied in the seventh inning against righty reliever Orion Kerkering. McCutchen hit a leadoff single to center, advanced to third on Reynolds’ double to right and scored to cut it to 7-5 when Cruz beat the throw on a sharp grounder to second.

Tellez lined out to left for his third sacrifice fly — becoming the first NL player to do so since Candy Maldonado of the San Francisco Giants in 1987 — to drive in Reynolds and cut the deficit to one run. But it resulted in a double play when Cruz attempted to tag from first. He beat Wilson’s throw from left by switching hands on his head-first slide to elude Sosa’s glove and was ruled safe by second base umpire Emil Jimenez. The Phillies challenged, however, and the call was overturned after video review showed Cruz came off the bag.

“A lot of people wrote us off early, so I think for us, it’s just taking one day at a time, one at-bat at a time, one play at a time,” Tellez said. “Got down early. Clawed back. Got down. Clawed back. I think it shows our resilience and ability to believe in ourselves.”

Phillies reliever Jeff Hoffman struck out the side in the eighth, and they put a pair of runners in scoring position before Carmen Mlodzinski (2-3) got pinch hitter Brandon Marsh swinging at a full-count fastball to escape and put the Pirates in position for the walk-off win.

“I think the fact that we finished the break strong and then you get the Phillies right out of jump street, we know how good they are,” Shelton said. “You get a guy (Aaron Nola) that’s been one of the best pitchers in the game the last seven to eight years, and that bullpen and that lineup … That lineup is no joke. It’s a big win for us. It’s a character win, and I’m really proud of them.”