Game 84 vs Pirates
Kyle Gibson took the mound tonight for the opener in Pittsburgh and he was moving and grooving his first four frames out the gate.
Gibson would be matched by Mitch Keller through their first two innings, both working scoreless innings. But Gibson’s came with five strikeouts, three via the sweeper and two via sinkers looking.
Alec Burleson would give Gibson a couple runs of support in the 3rd, blasting his 13th HR of the season. Burleson would take a high, 95mph, heater from Keller and send it over the Clemente Wall, pimping the absolute hell out of it, too.
After a quick 12-pitch inning from Gibson, in which he induced a 4-6-3 double play on Grandal, the Cardinals bats would get right back to work.
Donovan opened the inning with his second single of the night, sending it up the middle. Arenado then reached on catcher’s interference by Grandal, Carp followed that with a bloop single into LF to load the bases for Gorman.
Now this was easily the coolest moment of the game, especially given his go of things of late. Gorman would get a backdoor sweeper from Keller and send it to the deepest part of PNC, the opposite way to LCF where the LF wall meets the CF wall, 415 feet for his second-career grand slam. The Norm slam would put the Cardinals on top, 6-0.
The Pirates answered back on Gibson in their half of the 5th, getting HR from Suwinski (3R) and McCutchen (solo).
Brendan Donovan would add an insurance run for the Cardinals in the 7th, ripping an rbi single up the box again to score Goldy (who quietly added his first multi-double game of the season) to make it 7-4, Donovan’s third hit of the night.
The pen (King, Fernandez, JoJo, Helsley) would toss 4IP scoreless in relief of Gibson, who was lifted after just 79 pitches, racking up 8k’s along the way.
Helsley would make some Cardinals history, becoming the first closer to reach 31 saves or more before the All-Star break in franchise history, surpassing Lee Smith’s 1993 campaign. Helsley was back to grooving and trusting his heat, while also firing in some filthy sliders for an easy 1-2-3 9th to close out a, 7-4, Cardinals winner.
Miles Mikolas (6-7, 5.32) gets the ball in game two, facing off against the fireballer, Jared Jones (5-6, 3.66). First pitch is scheduled for 5:40pm c/t.
Cheers, Stew
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