North Shore Nine

The Pirates offense never rebounded after missing out on a golden opportunity in the top of the 1st. Andrew McCutchen walked and Bryan Reynolds doubled to set up 2 runners in scoring position with no outs, the Bucs then went down in order, all via the strikeout.

Sonny Gray escaped that jam and turned this into a fantastic performance. Gray would go on to toss seven innings, conceding only one run and striking out nine.

Bailey Falter always seemed to be pitching with traffic on the bases tonight, scattering eight hits and a walk over four innings. Falter got touched up in the 3rd and 4th innings, giving up three runs before he handed it off to the bullpen.

The Pirates would grab one back in the 5th, and then proceed to give it right back to make it a 4-1 ball game.

Henry Davis smashed a homer to left-center field in the 8th to cut the lead to two. This was an impressive swing from Hank, getting to a slider at the bottom of the zone and elevating it. Let’s hope we see more of this soon.

Another interesting bit from the game was Kyle Nicolas showing his great stuff. Nicolas has been extremely wild in many outings this season but this is what the Pirates thought they were getting when they traded for him. The fastball will be around 99, sometimes hitting 100 and the slider can be elite when the fastball is anywhere around the strike zone.

Nicolas fanned the first five batters he faced, then induced a groundout to first base to finish his two clean innings. We can all see he is inconsistent, but if he can locate the fastball his stuff will play at this level.

The Pirates got the tying run to the plate in the ninth, but couldn’t do any damage, evening this series at one. Mitch Keller will take the hill tomorrow at 2:15 against these same Cardinals, looking to win a series before they head to Colorado.