09/19/24 09:45:00
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09/19 21:43 CDT Grandal homers, Gonzales gets an RBI single in the 8th to push
Pittsburgh past St. Louis 3-2
Grandal homers, Gonzales gets an RBI single in the 8th to push Pittsburgh past
St. Louis 3-2
By DAVID SOLOMON
Associated Press
ST. LOUIS (AP) --- Yasmani Grandal homered, Nick Gonzales drove in the winning
run with a single in the eighth inning, and the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St.
Louis Cardinals 3-2 on Thursday night to snap a three-game losing streak.
Pirates starter Luis Ortiz allowed two runs on five hits and had seven
strikeouts in six innings.
"My whole focus today was to get weak contact, and the strikeouts showed up,"
Ortiz said via an interpreter. "That was not in my mind to strike people out,
but making quality pitches, that's what happened and we're pretty happy."
Carmen Mlodzinski (4-5) and Dennis Santana each tossed a scoreless inning, and
Aroldis Chapman pitched the ninth to earn his 10th save in 15 chances. It was
Chapman's 331st career save moving him past John Wetteland for the 16th most in
major league history.
"He's had a heck of a career," Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. "He's making
a very strong case to be a Hall of Famer. He's the all-time left-handed leader
as a reliever in strikeouts. This guy just continues to get better with age.
He's very impressive."
Cardinals starter Erick Fedde allowed one run on four hits and struck out three.
"There's still some room to improve on my movement," Fedde said. "I felt like
things were really late today just in the sense of kind of the swings I was
getting. They seemed a little more defensive than they have been, and to that
means my stuff's going to be late and a little harder to see. That's a great
sign."
St. Louis (77-76) fell to eight games behind the New York Mets (85-68) in the
National League wild-card race, and will be mathematically eliminated from
postseason contention with either one more loss or a Mets win.
Gonzales singled up the middle off Ryan Fernandez who entered the game after
JoJo Romero (7-3) walked pinch hitter Connor Joe with two outs in the top of
the eighth.
"Someone told me about how DJ Lemahieu kind of takes every AB the same, how
it's the most important AB no matter what the count, no matter what the
situation," Gonzales said. "I just try to do that the best that I can so every
single at-bat I have kind of feels the same. Obviously, emotions get going, but
I'm just trying my best to just make every single AB as important as the next
and trying to lock in and not trying to do too much."
Grandal hit his eighth home run of the season to right field in the seventh
inning to tie the game 2-2.
Brendan Donovan hit an RBI single to left in the fourth inning to tie the game
1-1, then drove in another run with a double to the left-center field gap in
the sixth inning to give the Cardinals a 2-1 lead. He now has a hit in all 18
home games he has played against Pittsburgh to start his career.
Gonzales lined a triple to right field that Jordan Walker had trouble
corralling and scored on Bryan De La Cruz's sacrifice fly to give Pittsburgh a
1-0 lead in the fourth inning.
TRANSACTION
Pittsburgh purchased the contract of RHP Isaac Mattson from Triple-A
Indianapolis. Mattson has not appeared in a major league game since pitching
for Baltimore on Oct. 1, 2021, in Toronto. RHP Jake Woodford was designated for
assignment.
TRAINER'S ROOM
Pirates: C Endy Rodrguez (right elbow surgery) batted third as the designated
hitter for Indianapolis in a rehab appearance at St. Paul.
UP NEXT
Pirates: RHP Mitch Keller (11-10, 3.87 ERA) is scheduled to face Reds RHP Nick
Martinez (9-6, 3.37 ERA) in the opener of a three-game series in Cincinnati on
Friday night.
Cardinals: RHP Kyle Gibson (8-7, 4.11 ERA) will oppose Guardians RHP Ben Lively
(12-9, 3.87 ERA) in the opener of St. Louis' final home series of the season on
Friday night.
---
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
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