Major League Baseball
BOXSCORE | RECAP
Pittsburgh 7, Texas 5
When: 2:05 PM ET, Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Where: Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Arlington, Texas
Temperature: 87°
Umpires: Home - Chad Fairchild, 1B - Paul Schrieber, 2B - Mike Muchlinski, 3B - Jeff Kellogg
Attendance: 30629

Pirates 7, Rangers 5:
Clint Barmes homered and drove in two runs while Justin Morneau went 4-for-5 and scored twice as Pittsburgh completed a three-game sweep of host Texas.

A.J. Burnett (8-10) retired the first 13 hitters before being charged with five runs and six hits in 6 1/3 innings to help the Pirates remain one game behind first-place St. Louis in the National League Central. The Rangers have lost eight of 10 outings to fall three games behind Oakland in the American League West, but are 3 1/2 games clear in the wild card race.

Texas tried to battled back from a four-run deficit with David Murphy, Ian Kinsler and Elvis Andrus each delivering RBI singles in the seventh to pull within 6-5. Barmes homered off the left-field foul pole in the eighth and Kyle Farnsworth worked a perfect ninth for his first save since 2011.

Neil Walker had an RBI single off Texas starter Matt Garza (3-4) in the third and the Pirates pushed two more across in the fourth when Barmes drew a bases-loaded walk and Jose Tabata hit into a fielder’s choice.

The Rangers trailed 4-0 before A.J. Pierzynski hit a one-out double in the fifth for the first baserunner against Burnett. Andrus broke up the shutout with a two-run single in the sixth but Pittsburgh got the runs back in the seventh on Pedro Alvarez’s sacrifice fly and a wild pitch by Neal Cotts.

GAME NOTEBOOK: Pirates CF Andrew McCutchen was given the day off despite batting .469 over the last nine games. … Garza allowed three runs, five hits and four walks over four innings. … Alvarez’s homer drought stretched to 14 games and the sacrifice fly was just his third RBI during the power outage.
Top Game Performances
Starting Pitchers
Pittsburgh   Texas
A.J. Burnett Player Matt Garza
Win W/L Loss
6.1 IP 4.0
7 Strikeouts 6
6 Hits 5
7.11 ERA 6.75
Hitting
Pittsburgh   Texas
Justin Morneau Player A.J. Pierzynski
4 Hits 2
0 RBI 0
0 HR 0
5 TB 4
.800 Avg .500
Team Stats Summary
 
Team Hits HR TB Avg LOB K RBI BB SB Errors
Pittsburgh 12 1 18 .333 18 9 5 5 1 0
Texas 9 0 11 .257 15 9 5 3 0 0