Cardinals rally from 4 down to beat Pirates, 6-5, in 11 innings
PITTSBURGH — St. Louis rallied from four runs down for a 6-5 victory over Pittsburgh in 11 innings on Monday at PNC Park to spoil the Pirates’ home opener.
Pittsburgh (1-2) jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first and added a run in the third for a 4-0 advantage, but the Cardinals (2-3) scored three in the seventh, one in the eighth and ninth, and one in the 11th.
“When you are in the game, you never have it won until you win it,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said. “That’s a good ball club over there, they are always going to battle. We didn’t play well enough to win today. We had a bad seventh inning that complicated things and let them get close again.”
St. Louis took advantage of a Pirates miscue in the 11th when Paul DeJohn singled to center field, Matt Wieters was hit by pitch, Yadier Molina walked, and with Yairo Munoz batting, a passed ball scored DeJohn for the winning run.
“Unfortunately, with the free 90s we gave them, too many opportunities late to extend innings and put baserunners on, that’s what cost us the game,” Hurdle said. “We just spent six weeks working on defense. We will continue to work.”
The Pirates had the winning run come to the plate in the bottom of the inning when Adam Frazier walked with one out, but Starling Marte grounded into a 4-6-3 double play.
Jordan Hicks blanked the Bucs in two innings with two strikeouts and one walk to earn the win and improve to 1-1. John Gant pitched the 11th for the save.
Steven Brault took the loss to fall to 0-1. He yielded one earned run on one hit in 1.2 innings. He had two strikeouts and walked two.
One day after Trevor Williams pitched six shutout innings, Chris Archer threw blanked the Cardinals for five in surrendering two hits with eight strikeouts, three walks and one hit batsman. He threw 99 pitches, 60 for strikes, in a no-decision.
“You have to tip your hat to the Cardinals,” Archer said. “They are a good club. I just try to put my team in a position to win, and I felt like I did that today.”
“He was fun to watch,” said Hurdle in reference to Archer. “Obviously, he was in it. The adrenaline flow always is probably full on with him as well. At the end of the day, five innings, no-run baseball.
“He made some really good pitches when he needed to and worked extremely well with some runners on base. I thought it was a professional outing. Probably threw more pitches than he would like to in five innings, but other than that, he got outs when he need them.”
Archer’s mound opponent, Adam Wainwright, walked in the third and moved to second when Paul DeJong was hit by pitch, but Archer got Marcell Ozuna to strike out swinging to get out of the one small jam he was in.
Archer also got St. Louis first baseman Paul Goldschmidt to strike out twice. Goldschmidt entered the game with four home runs, seven RBI and a .375 batting average.
“They are a good lineup and (Paul) Goldschmidt adds tremendous depth,” Archer said. “Now (Marcell) Ozuna and Yadier (Molina) can hit in a more natural position. I felt like we should have won that game, but that’s baseball. I am looking forward to coming out here Wednesday and getting the W.”
Pittsburgh had won its last five home openers prior coming into Monday’s game.
Wainwright has been a thorn in the Pirates’ side during his illustrious career, but the home team took advantage of the veteran’s struggle to throw strikes in the first inning to take a 3-0 lead.
Adam Frazier and Starling Marte drew back-to-back walks before moving to second and third on Corey Dickerson’s groundout to first. Frazier scored on Josh Bell’s grounder to second for a 1-0 advantage.
Francisco Cervelli walked before scoring on Colin Moran’s double to right field for a 3-0 lead. Marte also scored on Moran’s hit.
Pittsburgh added one run in the third for a 4-0 advantage when Marte singled, moved to third on Dickerson’s ground-rule double and scored on Bell’s sacrifice fly to left.
Wainwright allowed four earned runs on four hits in four innings. He had three strikeouts and walked four (one intentional) in throwing 72 pitches, 37 for strikes.
The Cardinals got back in the game in the seventh when they scored three runs on two hits and took advantage of one Pirates’ error.
Dexter Fowler was hit by pitch and Kolten Wong hit his third home run of the season on a line drive to right field to cut the deficit to 4-2.
Harrison Bader singled and Tyler O’Neill reached on a fielder’s choice. Bader moved to second on an error by Moran.
Pittsburgh removed Richard Rodriguez for Francisco Liriano, who walked Matt Carpenter to load the bases.
Keone Kela came into the game and walked Goldschmidt to force in the third run with nobody out, but the righty was able to get Paul DeJong to flyout to Marte in shallow centerfield and struck out Ozuna and Molina to end the threat and the Pirates maintained their one-run lead.
St. Louis tied the game at 4 in the eighth when Munoz singled and scored on O’Neill’s double to left field.
Moran led off the bottom of the inning with a home run to right field on a 1-1 count for a 5-4 Pittsburgh advantage.
Moran, who got his first start of the season at third base against the Cardinals, hit a grand slam in last year’s home opener against Minnesota in a 5-4 Bucs’ triumph.
“I was just trying to hit some good pitches and it worked out today,” Moran said. “I just try to come to the field, see if I’m playing or not and work from there. I just try to keep it simple.
“It is fun playing in front of a big crowd and they are really into it. I feel more comfortable in year two, obviously. On the home run in the eighth, he threw me a fastball and I was looking for it and put a good swing on it.”
St. Louis scored one unearned run on Pittsburgh closer Felipe Vasquez in the ninth to send the game into extra innings.