Sprague Delivers Another Winner

Before this season, Ed Sprague said he had never delivered a game-winning hit in the last at-bat for his team. Now he’s making it a habit.

Sprague singled off the wall in left-center field in the ninth inning Saturday night to give the Pittsburgh Pirates a 9-8 victory over the Kansas City Royals.

Sprague ended the game by hitting Jeff Montgomery’s 0-2 pitch into the huge gap created by a drawn-in outfield with one out. It was the Pirates’ ninth victory in their last at-bat and the second delivered by Sprague in the last month.

“That’s a great situation.” he said. “You’re just trying to make contact because even a short fly ball is probably going to score the run. You’re just trying to get a pitch and then put a good swing on it.”

Matt Whisenant (2-2) walked Adrian Brown with one out. Then Al Martin, whose two errors had cost the Pirates three unearned runs, singled Brown to third.

“I wasn’t looking at it as a chance for redemption,” Martin said. “It’s the ninth inning and I’m just trying to win the game. It feels good to win in spite of myself.”

Martin was four for six to match his career best for hits. Sprague had three hits and three runs batted in.

“That was one of those games where it was going to come down to the last at bat,” Royal Manager Tony Muser said. “You keep whacking on each other and usually the team that has the last at-bat is the one that prevails.”

Joe Randa’s streak of consecutive hits for Kansas City ended at 10, two short of the major league record. Randa singled in the second against Jose Silva for his team-record 10th hit in 10 at-bats. He then struck out in the third. He struck out and grounded into two double plays in his final three at-bats.

“I ended up getting myself out of my game plan a little bit because I swung at a lot of bad pitches,” he said. “I guess I got too aggressive.”

Randa fell short of the major league record of 12, shared by Pinky Higgins of the 1938 Boston Red Sox and Walt Dropo of the 1952 Detroit Tigers.