PITTSBURGH — If there’s a safe harbor for the Cardinals, a place where they can dock a few times this month, refuel, and maybe, just maybe get some buoyancy in this season after several months of low tide, it’s along the Allegheny River at PNC Park.
They’ll need starts like they got Tuesday to finish strong.
Against the submerged Pirates, lefty J. A. Happ pitched six sturdy innings and the only hit he allowed was a home run in the Cardinals’ 4-1 victory. Happ got his first win of this season while with the Twins by throwing 7 1/3 innings and allowing one hit against the Pirates, and he got his first win as a Cardinal by echoing the feat against the last-place Bucs. Of the three veteran lefties the Cardinals have added to rescue their rotation in the past 2 1/2 months, Happ is the first two get a win — in the 10th start by that trio.
Alex Reyes, the Cardinals' All-Star closer, quickly secured the victory and his 26th save with a flawless ninth just two days after Sunday's rainy game slipped into a loss for him after the long delay.
For almost as long as they’ve been searching for a string of quality starts, the Cardinals have been trying to spark a winning streak. They returned to .500 for the ninth time in their past 19 games, and Wednesday they’ll be trying to win for a fourth time in five games for the first time in a month. The Pirates, if anything, are in position to be plundered.
Pittsburgh is the lowest scoring team in the majors, but at the same time boasts a pitching staff with the second-highest ERA in the National League. The Pirates average fewer runs per game than the pitching staff allows earned runs, on average, per nine innings.
And the Cardinals play them 10 times in the next 18 games.
Seven of those games will be at picturesque PNC.
They got both the start they wanted before Happ took the mound and the start they needed from Happ on the mound. Leadoff hitter Tommy Edman, atop the lineup because lefty Steven Brault started for the Pirates, opened the game with a home run on the fourth pitch. His second career leadoff homer gave the Cardinals a 1-0 lead. Paul DeJong doubled that with a full-count homer in the second inning.
Happ (6-6) had a 2-0 lead and had yet to allow a baserunner. The lefty strolled through the first nine batters he faced with three strikeouts, four flyouts, and two groundouts. He caught the first two batters of the first inning looking at strike three. Bucs leadoff hitter Hoy Park stared at a 2-2, 92-mph fastball before pivoting and walking back to the dugout. Ke’Bryan Hayes, one of the division’s most talented rookies, watched a full-count, 84-mph slider bend past him without a swing for the second out of the game.
It wasn’t until those two came up for a second time that Happ had trouble.
Park tagged a home run into the right-field seats atop PNC’s Clemente wall for his first big league home run and the only run and hit Happ allowed. That’s because he ducked whatever other trouble he invited. Hayes walked after Park’s homer only to be immediately deleted from the bases by a double play. In the sixth, a walk to pinch hitter Wilmer Difo was followed by a debatable sacrifice bunt from Park. Happ got help from his infield to get out of that inning. Edmundo Sosa, a late-afternoon addition to the lineup at second base, snared a liner to end the inning and Happ’s evening.
The lefty struck out five in his six innings, and in 13 1/3 innings against the Pirates this season he has allowed two hits and one run. If he stays on turn, he’ll get two more starts against the Bucs this month, all sandwiched around a start against Kansas City.
Brault began Tuesday’s game with limited pitches and is likely to spend the rest of the season with some restrictions on how deep into games he throws, how many pitches he’s permitted to toss in high-stress innings. The lefty missed most of the season with a lat strain, and Tuesday’s start was only his second in the majors this summer.
Before the game, the Pirates declined to identify the number of pitches that triggered the ejector seat, but acknowledged they had a button.
That meant at some point the Cardinals could count on facing the Bucs’ bullpen.
That was when they pulled ahead.
Brault held the Cardinals to two solo homers in the first two innings and then strolled toward the sixth inning with five strikeouts and nary a scare in the middle innings. At 78 pitches and five innings, Brault had exhausted his limit. It wasn’t long before the Cardinals’ exercised their legs with some small ball. Dylan Carlson greeted reliever Kyle Keeler with a single, Carlson’s third single of the game. He took second on a wild pitch, and that put him in position to score on a ground ball that got past shortstop Kevin Newman.
Yadier Molina put that ball in play that was initially ruled an RBI single and later changed to an error on the shortstop. The RBI was erased.
But not the runs it helped create.
Carlson’s was the first, and Nolan Arenado went first to third on Molina’s ground ball so that he could score easily from third on Harrison Bader’s single. Within five batters, the Cardinals had done against the Pirates bullpen what they accomplished in five innings against Brault. They doubled their scoring for the game and widened a one-run into a three-run gap.
