By MATT PIKE
The Pittsburgh Pirates needed just one run to take down the St. Louis Cardinals at PNC Park on Tuesday night, securing a series win, though a win against the Cardinals still avoided young Pirates ace Paul Skenes despite another brilliant start.
Skenes shut down the Cardinals over five innings of a pitchers duel, giving up five hits and striking out five while walking one, but was countered by an excellent start from St. Louis starter Andre Pallante who threw seven shutout innings, striking out three, walking two, and giving up just one hit to the Pirates.
It wasn’t until reliever Phil Maton came on in the eighth inning that Pittsburgh was able to get on the board. Ke’Bryan Hayes singled off Maton to lead off the inning, and moved to third on a double by Adam Frazier, before scoring on a sacrifice fly by Henry Davis for the only run that the Pirates would need in the game.
Maton took the loss, falling to 1-3, pitching just the one inning and giving up one run on three hits, striking out one batter. At the plate, the Cardinals did get seven hits overall, but no batter had more than one. Brendan Donovan was 1-for-4 with a walk, while José Fermín was 1-for-3 with a walk.
St. Louis looks to avoid a sweep tomorrow as they wrap up their series with Pittsburgh. Sonny Gray (8-2, 3.36 ERA) takes the mound for the Cardinals, after most recently throwing a one hit complete game shutout against Cleveland, taking on Mitch Keller (2-10, 3.90 ERA) for the Pirates. First pitch is at 11:35am, coverage will be joined near the start at 11:25 on KY 102 (102.5 FM).
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