North Shore Nine

The Pittsburgh Pirates won game one of the series with St. Louis 2-1 Monday night. Timely hitting and good defense allowed the Piraets to earn the win. The Pirates also got into the Cards bullpen early and ran up the pitch counts on a few of them.

Mitch Keller was able to pitch through the 1st with relative ease, giving the Pirates the chance to take the early lead. However, a walk to Oneil Cruz and a stolen base could not get the run across. Ergo, the Pirates and Cardinals went to the 2nd scoreless. The 2nd came and went, like the time that we spent, hiding out from the rain under the garden tent. In the 3rd however the Bucs struck first. Andrew McCutchen hit a one out double, then with two outs Cruz singled him home. He stole second again, second of the night, however Nick Gonzales hit a sharp lineup to end the threat. Cards went scoreless again in the top of the 4th. In the bottom of the inning Jack Suwinski walked with two outs, he then stole 2nd on a pick off attempt. However, Connor Joe struck out to end the fourth.
In the 5th, Nolan Norman hit a ball that barely touched the foul poll, but just enough to count as a homerun to tie the game 1-1. Rowdy Tellez then saved the inning with a beautiful diving stop with two outs to keep the game knotted at 1. In the bottom of the frame the Pirates had their first 1-2-3 inning of the game. To not be outdone, Keller then matched that in the top of the 6th. Then bottom of the frame and the 7th went scoreless leading to the 8th.
In the top of the 8th, Aroldis Chapman came on to increase his trade value pitching a easy scoreless frame. In the bottom of the fram Bryan Reynolds lead off with a single. He then took 2nd on a wild pitch. Cruz struck out, Nick Gonzales followed with RBI single to give the Pirates a 2-1 lead. Rowdy Tellez then singled to put men on the corners with one out. Ke’Bryan Hayes battled into a double play, bringing the game to the ninth.
The man from Plum, David Bednar, came on to attempt to close the game out for the Pirates. Bednar got a quick two outs, before allowing a single off the glove of a diving Cruz to Paul Goldschmidt. He then struck out Gorman to seal the win for the Pirates.

The Pirates will be back in action tomorrow night with Paul Skenes on the mound for the Bucs. He will face off against the right hander Lance Lynn. First pitch is scheduled for 6:40 PM EST.