Henry Urrutia hit the third Baltimore Orioles home run of the day as the Orioles scored twice in the bottom of the eighth to defeat the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates 6-4. Urrutia's home run (1) was the tie breaker, and Ryan Lavarnway later doubled home an insurance run to give the Orioles their two-run margin of victory.
Baltimore's first two home runs came in the fifth. With the game tied at 2-2, Ryan Flaherty (1) led off the inning with a solo shot, and Adam Jones (1) added another with two outs and the bases empty. That gave the Orioles a two-run lead that would eventually fade away.
Pittsburgh tied it with single runs in each of the sixth and seventh innings. Corey Hart smacked his first spring home run (1) in the sixth, and Elvis Escobar tripled home Gorkys Hernandez with the game-tying run. Urrutia and Lavarnway took over from there.
The teams traded runs throughout the first five innings with Baltimore scoring in the first (Jones RBI single) and third (Steve Lombardozzi error) and Pittsburgh matching them in the second (Elias Diaz sacrifice fly) and fifth (Jaff Decker RBI single).
Brad Brach (W: 1-0, 2.45 ERA) benefited from the two-run eighth to notch the win. He pitched two innings and allowed one earned run on two hits. He walked one and fanned two. Mike Wright (S: 1) struck out the side in the ninth, pitching around a walk, to earn the save.
Orioles starter Chris Tillman allowed only one earned run on four hits in four innings. He walked no one and struck out five.
Stolmy Pimentel (L: 1-1. 9.00) surrendered Urrutia's game-winning home run to suffer the loss. He allowed two earned runs on three hits and a walk in his only inning of work. None of the five Pirates pitchers lasted more than two innings.
On Friday, the Orioles visit the Boston Red Sox, and Pittsburgh splits its squad. One half of the Pirates will host the Philadelphia Phillies while their other team visits the Minnesota Twins. All three games will start at 1:05 p.m. EDT.