Outside of Barajas, the story of the game was A.J. Burnett, who bounced back from his horrible outing in St. Louis in a big way, striking out ten Nationals in eight innings and allowing just two runs.
Home runs from Andrew McCutchen and Garrett Jones in the fourth made this a tie ballgame, and it would stay that way until the bottom of the eighth. Nate McLouth drew a walk and went to third on an error by Ian Desmond. Neil Walker hit a sacrifice fly and the Pirates took the lead without the benefit of a hit.
Joel Hanrahan came off for the save and blew it, giving up a single to Ryan Zimmerman and then a home run to Adam LaRoche. Tony Watson came on after Hanrahan got two outs and struck out a batter after giving up a single to send the game to the bottom of the ninth.
Alex Presley pinch hit for Watson in the bottom of the 9th and singled. He went to third on back-to-back wild pitches from Nationals closer Henry Rodriguez. Both pitches were sliders so the batter, Barajas, knew he wouldn’t be seeing another one of those. He turned on a first pitch fastball and pounded it into the left field bleachers and the Pirates had their 13th win of the year.
Huge win for the Bucs. They'll have two chances to win the series; their first chance is tomorrow night when Ross Detwiler faces Erik Bedard at 7:05.