Jhonny Peralta, Adam Wainwright dominate Pirates, 7-0

The Cardinals crushed the Pirates, 7-0, as Adam Wainwright struck out seven batters and allowed just three hits in eight innings.

Wainwright's performance (and that of Carlos Martinez, who the Cards for some reason brought in to strike out the side in the ninth) would have been good enough if the Cardinals had scored even one run, but Edinson Volquez had a bad day as well. Volquez gave up a double to the first batter he faced, Matt Carpenter, who later came home on a sacrifice fly. Volquez then kept the Cardinals under control until the fifth, when Jhonny Peralta led off with a homer.

Then, in the sixth, the Cards put two runners on, and then the Pirates narrowly missed an inning-ending double play (or at least that's what it was called; the play was reviewed) on a poor throw from Neil Walker. Allen Craig then brought home one of the runnners with a single.

Then up came Peralta, who battled Volquez to a 2-2 count. Volquez threw a changeup near Peralta's knees that could well have been strike three. The umpire called it a ball, perhaps reacting to Tony Sanchez pulling the ball too far back into the zone. On the next pitch, Volquez threw another changeup, and Peralta blasted off for a three-run homer. If you ever needed evidence of the importance of pitch-framing, here it was.

That made it 6-0, but the game drifted on for another hour after that, because baseball. Matt Adams tripled off Jeanmar Gomez in the eighth when Jose Tabata dove for and missed a line drive. Adams then came home on a sacrifice fly.