Defensive lapses plague Pirates as Tigers use 5-run 7th inning to roll to win

The Detroit Tigers took advantage of defensive lapses by the Pittsburgh Pirates, including a botched rundown, and answered a three-run sixth inning with one that put their Grapefruit League game away.

The Tigers batted around the order in a five-run seventh to roll to a 10-7 win Thursday afternoon at LECOM Park in Bradenton, Fla. The Tigers had five hits, a walk and a batter hit by a pitch in that inning alone.

Pirates left-hander Rich Hill allowed two hits and one walk while striking out two over three innings, giving up his only run when a rundown went awry in the third inning.

With Akil Baddoo on third base, Hill made a pickoff move to get Ryan Kreidler leading off first base. Carlos Santana threw to Tucupita Marcano at second, but Kreidler paused long enough to allow Baddoo to break for home. When Hill didn’t cover first, Marcano turned and threw to catcher Kevin Plawecki but Baddoo beat the tag for a 1-0 lead.

The Pirates tied it in the bottom of the third, when Plawecki singled, advanced to second on a wild pitch and to third on Ji Hwan Bae’s infield single. Plawecki scored when Bryan Reynolds grounded into a double play.

Wil Crowe relieved Hill but gave up two runs in the fourth. Nick Maton’s solo home run to right field gave the Tigers a 2-1 lead. Jake Rogers doubled off the top of the left-field wall, then scored on Kerry Carpenter’s triple off Santana’s glove down the first-base line.

Detroit stretched its lead to 4-1 against Yohan Ramirez in the fifth, when center fielder Jack Suwinski lost a Cesar Hernandez pop fly in the sun for a double. Jermaine Palacios pinch ran for Hernandez and scored on Bae’s throwing error while trying to turn a double play on an Andre Lipcius forceout.

The Pirates tied it with a three-run sixth. Andrew McCutchen singled, and pinch runner Jason Delay scored on Suwinski’s sacrifice fly to right to cut it to 4-2. Canaan Smith-Njigba singled to score pinch runner Drew Maggi to make it a one-run game. Smith-Njigba singled and advanced to second on a wild pitch, then scored to tie the game on Marcano’s double.

The Tigers regained the lead when Palacios hit a ground-rule double down the right-field line off lefty Angel Perdomo to score Austin Murr and make it 5-4.

Colin Selby replaced Perdomo but gave up three runs as the Pirates backups had repeated defensive lapses in misplaying fly balls and even throwing to the wrong base. The Tigers made it 9-4 with a double by Mario Feliciano, a sacrifice fly by Andrew Navigato, a Jace Jung single to center and a Brendon Davis double.

The Tigers made it 10-4 in the eighth when Donny Sands doubled off Nathan Webb to score Feliciano.

With two outs and two strikes, Maggi hit his second home run of spring training, a three-run shot in the bottom of the ninth to cut it to 10-7.

JT Brubaker is expected to start against Zack Wheeler when the Pirates play the Phillies at 1:05 p.m. Friday in Clearwater.