Remembering Walker’s walk-off
PITTSBURGH — Neil Walker provided one of the most memorable opening day moments in Pirates’ history this past Monday.
The second baseman led off the bottom of the 10th inning by fouling off a pair of full-count pitches from Carlos Villanueva, then hit a home run into the right-field stands at PNC Park to give the Pirates a 1-0 victory over the Chicago Cubs.
Walker became just the second player in major-league history to hit a walk-off homer on opening day in a game that was scoreless in extra innings.
The other player was also a Pirate as Bob Bailey connected off Hall of Famer Juan Marichal in the 10th inning in 1965 to give the Bucs a 1-0 win over the San Francisco Giants at Forbes Field.
That was also the last time a Pirates’ opener was scoreless through nine innings. The last major-league opener to go into extra innings at 0-0 was in 1998 when the New York Mets edged the Philadelphia Phillies 1-0 in 1998.
Monday marked the eighth 1-0 extra-inning game on opening day in the majors since 1914 and the 10th extra-inning shutout.
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The Pirates’ second game of the season Wednesday night also proved memorable. Rookie Tony Sanchez hit a pinch-hit single in the 16th inning to lift the Bucs to a 4-3 victory over the Cubs in a game that took five hours, 55 minutes, the longest game in terms of time in Pittsburgh history.
The old record was 5:49 on May 27, 2006 when the Pirates beat the Houston Astros 8-7 in 18 innings with Jose Bautista hitting a walk-off sacrifice fly off Dave Borkowski.
It marked the first time the Pirates ever opened a season with consecutive walkoff wins and the first time they played back-to-back extra-inning games to begin a season since 1964. That year, they lost to the Cubs 8-4 in 10 innings in the opener at Forbes Field, then downed Chicago 5-4 in 12 innings the next day.
Hall of Famer Lou Brock’s RBI single off ElRoy Face proved to be the game-winning hit for the Cubs in the opener. In the second game, Bill Virdon drew a bases-loaded walk with two outs to force in Bailey with the winning run.
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Three of the Pirates’ top four prospects, as ranked by Baseball America, began the season on the minor-league disabled list — Class AAA Indianapolis right-hander Jameson Taillon (elbow), high Class A Bradenton righty Tyler Glasnow (back) and low Class A West Virginia outfielder Austin Meadows (hamstring).
Taillon is ranked No. 2, Glasnow No. 3 and Meadows No. 4.
Outfielder Gregory Polanco, the No. 1 prospect, was assigned to Indianapolis out of spring training, while right-hander Nick Kingham (No. 5) and shortstop Alen Hanson (No. 6) were sent to Class AA Altoona. Outfielder Josh Bell (No. 7) was assigned to Bradenton and catcher Reese McGuire (No. 8), outfielder Harold Ramirez (No. 9) and right-hander Luis Heredia (No. 10) were sent to West Virginia.