BRADENTON, Fla. (AP) _ C.J. Nitkowski allowed one hit in five scoreless innings Sunday as the Detroit Tigers beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-4.

Nitkowski, who figures to be the only lefty in the Tigers' rotation, struck out three, walked one and lowered his spring ERA from 5.19 to 3.29.

Tilson Brito hit a two-run home run for Detroit while Gregg Jefferies and Dean Palmer had two hits each.

Bruce Aven had two hits and two RBIs for Pittsburgh, and Aramis Ramirez also had two hits.

Brito's homer in the ninth off Josias Manzanillo gave Detroit a 5-2 lead.

Pittsburgh scored twice in the bottom half on an RBI double by Aven and a run-scoring single by Ramirez. However, David Darwin got Adrian Brown to hit into a game-ending double play for his first save.

Loser Jason Schmidt, scheduled to be the Pirates' opening-night starter, gave up two runs on five hits in 3 1-3 innings with four walks and five strikeouts.

Detroit took the lead for good by scoring single runs off Schmidt in the third and fourth innings. Karim Garcia had an RBI double in the third and Jefferies singled home a run in the fourth.