A strange call and, later, big mistakes by Neil Walker and Rick Sofield led to a 3-1 Pirates loss to the Royals Tuesday night.
In the top of the second, Starling Marte led off with a shot to left that was initially ruled a solo homer. The ball had hit near the top of the wall, though, and caromed weirdly over another wall. Apparently, at Kauffman Stadium, the rule is that if it's below the fence line, it's in play, so the hit was ruled a ground-rule double upon review. Marte stole third, but (after Royals starter Jason Vargas left due to injury) Joe Blanton struck out Brent Morel and Chris Stewart, and Marte was stranded.