PITTSBURGH—The Cardinals’ offense, which often has been lacking, did something it hadn’t done all season Thursday night by scoring seven runs with two out, the most they’ve had in a nine-inning game this season.
But lefthanded reliever Genesis Cabrera squandered a four-run lead and allowed six of his own in a catastrophic seventh inning as the Pittsburgh Pirates overcame an early 7-0 deficit and won going away 11-7 in a match the Cardinals long will remember this winter if they come up a game short of the postseason—if they even get that close.
The Pirates, ending a string of 10 consecutive Cardinals victories over two seasons at PNC Park, scored eight runs before the Cardinals recorded an out in the seventh—that was a first in the majors this season--as Andrew Miller failed to retire either of the two men he faced and Cabrera was akin to a shooting gallery, retiring none of the six men he faced, with three of them lefthanded hitters.
Yoshi Tsutsugo, a lefthanded batter sent up to pinch hit against Cabrera, capped the uprising with a two-run homer after Cabrera had allowed singles by Michael Chavis, Bryan Reynolds, Colin Moran and Wilmer Difo and a double by Gregory Polanco.
According to the Pirates’ radio network, the Pirates had overcome a deficit of six runs or more against the Cardinals to win a game only once in 50 years. That came on July 12, 2008.
Tommy Edman, Nolan Arenado and Edmundo Sosa, all of whom drove in two runs, sparked the Cardinals to a 7-0 lead against Mitch Keller in the first three innings. Coupled with a run-scoring single by Paul Goldschmidt, all the runs had come after two out.
The only comparable this season came when they scored a run in the ninth and six in the 10th at Colorado in a 9-3 win on July 2.
There was no comparable for the seven-run lead being blown. The Cardinals hadn’t done that all year either.
Keller had held them to one run and six hits in 16 innings. They got six hits off him on Thursday but they came in 5 1/3 innings, including two-run homers by Arenado and Sosa and a two-run double by Edman.
All those runs came in the first three innings but starter Miles Mikolas wasn’t able to last five innings, marking the 40th time this season a Cardinals starter had failed to navigate five innings.
Edman walked to lead off the game and, with out, Arenado bent his 26th homer around the left-field foul pole.
Arenado had been four for 34 on the just completed eight-game home stand at Busch Stadium.
Having scored a run in the top of the inning, second baseman Edman may have taken one away in the bottom half. With a runner at first and one out, he dived to his right to flag down Reynolds’ smash and turned it into a forceout. Mikolas then struck out Moran, giving him two strikeouts in the inning.
And then Edman helped add three more runs to the Cardinals’ count, doubling in two runs and scoring another in the second as the Cardinals forged to a 5-0 lead.
Lars Nootbaar, who had been two for two against Keller, walked and Sosa singled to start the inning. Harrison Bader flied to left but Mikolas advanced the runners with a sacrifice and Edman, hitting much better lately from the left side, doubled over the first-base bag to chase home both Nootbaar and Sosa. Paul Goldschmidt delivered Edman with a single to left.
Edman has hit safely in 12 of his past 13 games at a .365 clip.
Polanco, who was placed on outright waivers by the Pirates but not claimed, doubled home a run for Pittsburgh in the second.
But Sosa drilled his fourth homer into the right-center-field bleachers in the third after a Yadier Molina single to make it 7-1. The opposite-field drive was measured at 428 feet.
Moran, who has been trouble for the Cardinals for a few seasons, launched a long two-run homer to right, off a Mikolas changeup, to cut the gap to 7-3 in the Pirates’ third. These runs, too, were scored with two out.
Difo singled under the glove of diving first baseman Goldschmidt and Polanco slashed a single that got through shortstop Sosa later in the inning. But Mikolas induced Kevin Newman to fly to left.
Mikolas, starting for the second time since he came off the injured list, didn’t make it out of the fifth, however. T. J. McFarland entered with runners on first and third and one out after a double by Chavis, who had four hits, and a single by Moran. In two pitches, McFarland had cleaned up the mess by getting Difo to ground into a double play started by Sosa.
Sosa was hit in the left arm by a pitch from Kevin Keller in the Cardinals’ fifth. That marked the 15th such plunking, setting a Cardinals record for rookies held by Steve Evans since 1909.
Lefthander Andrew Miller pitched a brilliant sixth for the the Cardinals, striking out two. But, after he allowed a double to Ke’Bryan Hayes and walked Ben Gamel, Miller gave way to Cabrera, and it all came tumbling down.
In his last two appearances against the Pirates—one last Saturday and the one here on Thursday--Cabrera has given up 10 hits and nine runs while pitching one official inning.
The Cardinals' 17 hits allowed were a season high.
