The Pittsburgh Pirates topped the Detroit Tigers in a 14-inning showdown on Wednesday morning and continued on to clobber them 9-3 later that night. Mostly thanks to Pirates second baseman Neil Walker, who had the walk-off in the morning and two home runs in the evening. 

The Tigers scored early in the game, but Walker got his show going with a two-run homer in the third inning to score Josh Harrison. 

Walker is not a heavy hitting guy. The infielder came into the game hitting .259 with four home runs, which was not how he wanted to represent himself. 

"I'm not a huge home-run guy, and I know that," he said. "But my job is to be a big part of our offense and produce runs, and I haven't been doing that. Maybe this will get something started."

The first home run hit by Walker sparked a five-run third inning in which the six, seven and eight hitters kept things going against the starting pitcher. 

"We did a great job of managing our at-bats today," said Pirates manager Clint Hurdle. "Walk(er) started us this morning, and it kept going all night."

Detroit sent Alfredo Simon to the mound, but he was crushed for six runs on 15 hits. Simon struck out seven and tossed 109 pitches over 5.2 innings pitched. He took the loss and is now 7-5 with a 3.94 ERA. 

"He didn't have his command, and he was scuffling to get outs," said Tigers manager Brad Ausmus. "The silver lining is that he gave us some innings on a day when we really needed innings."

Joba Chamberlain pitched just two outs in the eighth inning, but gave up solo home runs to Walker, Starling Marte and Pedro Alvarez. Chamberlain's ERA jumped to 4.29 after the extreme struggle. 

"I can't be mad, I would have booed me too," said the Tigers' set-up man, who has an 18.00 ERA in his last six outings, having allowed four homers in four innings.

Veteran starting pitcher A.J. Burnett was dominant once again. He went 7.0 innings, giving up two runs on seven hits. He ran away with the win and is now 7-3 with a 2.05 ERA. 

"When you get that many runs, you just want to get ahead in the count," said Burnett, who threw first-pitch strikes to 24 of the 29 batters he faced. "It's a lot easier pitching from 0-1."

In the ninth inning, James McCann launched a home run to left center, but it was not nearly enough to help motivate a Detroit comeback. McCann has continued to rake, but Alex Avila will be the regular starter, as Ausmus noted to The Detroit News.