Throwing Error Leads To Pirate Loss To Cardinals

Adam Frazier homered on the first pitch of the game, but it was all downhill from there for the Pirates Saturday night, losing 3-1 in St. Louis.

With the game tied at one with one out in the sixth, Cardinal rookie Tommy Edman roped a ball into the right-center gap, pulling into second with a double. However, shortstop Kevin Newman did not know where the runner was and threw it to third. The ball was short-hopped to Colin Moran and got past him, rolling into the dugout because Joe Musgrove did not back up the play. That allowed Edman to come home for the eventually deciding run.

The Cardinals would tack on another run later in the inning when a drawn in Newman could not make a play in the hole. Paul DeJong got an RBI single as a result, plating Paul Goldschmidt.

The Pirates’ only offense came on Frazier’s first pitch home run, but they had other chances against Adam Wainwright, the best coming in the fifth. With the bases loaded and one out, Starling Marte lined a ball hard, but right to the shortstop DeJong. Josh Bell then struck out to end the inning.

Wainwright struck out eight over six innings to get the win (8-8).

Musgrove (8-11) started shaky, loading the bases before recording an out in the first, but he escaped with only one run allowed via a Marcell Ozuna double-play.

He got into a groove from there until the sixth inning. He finished with three earned runs allowed over 5.1 innings on six hits and three walks. He struck out six.

Francisco Liriano pitched 1.2 innings, with his only base runner allowed being DeJong’s infield single.

Giovanny Gallegos retired all seven batters he faced in relief. Carlos Martinez finished the ninth for his 12th save of the season.

The Pirates are 4-23 since the All-Star break, losing all nine of their series played.

On Deck

Steven Brault (3-1, 4.09) will try to snap their seven game losing streak Sunday against Miles Mikolas (7-12, 3.94). First pitch is scheduled for 2:15 p.m..

NUMB3RS

1. Musgrove had 32 combined called strikes (18) and whiffs (14). That’s the most he has had in a game since he recorded 36 on Apr. 16.

2. Edman has 10 multi-hit games in his rookie season. Four of them have come against the Pirates.

3. Marte has a .286 (2/7) batting average on balls batted 109 MPH or harder this year (his fifth inning lineout had an exit velocity of 109.0 MPH). He batted .696 (16/23) on balls hit at least that hard from 2015-2018.