Both offenses stayed quiet into the 5th, when Pittsburgh broke through for 3 runs while Detroit answered with 1 of its own in the same inning. The Pirates tacked on an insurance run in the 8th and made it stand up, closing out a 4-1 win despite committing an error and getting outhit only marginally, 6 to 5.
Montero had rolled into Pittsburgh off a scoreless start against Cleveland, but the Pirates got to him in that pivotal 5th and never let go. Ashcraft, for his part, kept working around Detroit's shorthanded order all night — the kind of outing that's kept his name in the Pirates' rotation conversation and the Tigers still hunting for answers in a tight AL wild-card chase.
Detroit had beaten this same Pittsburgh club a night earlier behind a Kevin McGonigle homer, so the split was a reminder of how even these two clubs have played each other lately — separated more by which arm shows up than by anything structural.