The starting pitching displayed tonight was superb. Uncle Charlie and Trevor Williams were grooving, both giving 7 innings of work for their teams.
The only run Waino would surrender during his 7 innings was a leadoff HR to RF off the bat of Frazier. It wasn’t even a bad pitch, sitting up and in of the hands of Frazier.
Waino battled back to strikeout the side looking, and he had the strikeout pitch in his back pocket this evening, racking up a total of 8.
The Cardinals bats, the same bats that put up 17 runs yesterday, struggled to do anything tonight, going (1-9) with RISP, stranding 10 (7 the first 4 innings).
The Pirates would even commit three errors through the first 4 frames, none of which coming back to bite them.
The Cardinals would strand the bases loaded in the bottom of the 1st, wasting Goldy (3-5) and Swags (2-4) singles.
They would do the same thing in the 3rd, as Williams would end the inning getting Cafecíto to ground into a 6-4-3 double play after Goldy and Swags singled.
Waino was locked in during all these offensive struggles, working four 1-2-3 innings.
Muñoz would pinch-hit for Waino in the 7th, facing Williams. Jive would squib a little infield single to the right side with one out. Goldy would single with Jive in motion to put runners on the corners with two down for Deez.
After going (0-3) his first three at bats, Deez would dribble an infield single against the shift to the right side to score Muñoz, tying the game at 1-1.
Miller would pitch the 8th, working for the first time in five days. Miller would give the lead right back to the Bucs, allowing three hits, as Marte drove in the game-winning run with a single to score Tucker to make it 2-1 Pirates.
A great opportunity slipped away from the Cards in the bottom of the inning, as they’d have runners on the corners with nobody out vs Crick. Café worked a leadoff walk and Yadi singled into RF to bring up Dex, who worked a deep count and eventually struck out.
KoWo would then ground into an inning ending double play back up the middle, hitting a slow grounder to Tucker, who stepped on the bag and fired over to Bell to beat Wong to keep things at 2-1 Pittsburgh.
Vázquez retired the side in order in the bottom of the 9th for his 11th save, striking out Goldy on a changeup to end the game.
The Liz King (4-2, 4.02) takes the mound against Jordan Lyles (2-1, 2.20) tomorrow afternoon. First pitch 1:15pm c/t.
Cheers, Stew