Monday night's 10-hit offensive outburst by the Pirates was proved to be an outlier tonight as Sonny Gray and the Cardinals' bullpen limited the home team's bats to just three hits through eight innings and handed the Pirates their eighth loss of the season, 5-3.
Gray, starting his third game of the year after giving up five earned runs to the Angels on April 2, scattered three hits and struck out four while making one mistake for his second win of the season.
That one mistake? None other than a 3-1 sinker on the inside edge of the plate that Bryan Reynolds sent 391 feet into the right field bleachers above the Roberto Clemente Wall. But, that was pretty much it for the Pirates.
Yes, they tacked on two more runs in the ninth inning, thanks to another doubles from both Reynolds and Joey Bart and a ground out RBI from Andrew McCutchen. But the problems the Pirates had on this night -- as they usually do -- occurred between innings one through eight.
Endy Rodriguez and Enmanuel Valdez were the only other Pirates to record hits in the first eight innings as the team struck out a combined nine times and didn't walk once. Of the 12 Pirates that recorded an at-bat tonight, seven went hitless and eight struck out at least once.
This type of performance wasn't anything new, but Gray did bring his best game on this occasion. He threw 71 pitches through his five innings and located 44 for strikes while leaning heavily on his sinker. He threw it 28% of the time while throwing his curveball 14 times and his fastball just 12. He mixed in his sweeper, changeup and cutter as well, according to Baseball Savant.
"Sonny can pitch. The ability to spin the ball, that was the one thing on a cold night, we didn't know how he was going to do it," Derek Shelton said. "He did a good job with it. He kept us off balance by using his breaking ball and slider."
Steven Matz and Kyle Leahy combined to pitch three scoreless innings of relief while striking out four and not giving up a hit before the Pirates got to Jojo Romero for two earned runs in the ninth.
"We just got some balls to fall," Shelton said of his team's two runs in the ninth. "Bryan hit a ball, Joey had a good at-bat. We gotta continue to go."
The Pirates haven't seemed to do that enough this season. After tonight's game, they have the sixth-worst team batting average (.205) in Major League Baseball -- five of tonight's nine starters are hitting below .200 to start the season -- the seventh-worst on-base percentage (.288), third-worst slugging percentage (.318) and fourth-worst OPS (.606). They are also tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers for the lead-league in strikeouts (115) and have the third-fewest home runs.
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THE ASYLUM
Greg Macafee
6:14 am - 04.09.2025NORTH SHOREMound Visit: Offense still slogging
Monday night's 10-hit offensive outburst by the Pirates was proved to be an outlier tonight as Sonny Gray and the Cardinals' bullpen limited the home team's bats to just three hits through eight innings and handed the Pirates their eighth loss of the season, 5-3.
Gray, starting his third game of the year after giving up five earned runs to the Angels on April 2, scattered three hits and struck out four while making one mistake for his second win of the season.
That one mistake? None other than a 3-1 sinker on the inside edge of the plate that Bryan Reynolds sent 391 feet into the right field bleachers above the Roberto Clemente Wall. But, that was pretty much it for the Pirates.
Yes, they tacked on two more runs in the ninth inning, thanks to another doubles from both Reynolds and Joey Bart and a ground out RBI from Andrew McCutchen. But the problems the Pirates had on this night -- as they usually do -- occurred between innings one through eight.
Endy Rodriguez and Enmanuel Valdez were the only other Pirates to record hits in the first eight innings as the team struck out a combined nine times and didn't walk once. Of the 12 Pirates that recorded an at-bat tonight, seven went hitless and eight struck out at least once.
This type of performance wasn't anything new, but Gray did bring his best game on this occasion. He threw 71 pitches through his five innings and located 44 for strikes while leaning heavily on his sinker. He threw it 28% of the time while throwing his curveball 14 times and his fastball just 12. He mixed in his sweeper, changeup and cutter as well, according to Baseball Savant.
"Sonny can pitch. The ability to spin the ball, that was the one thing on a cold night, we didn't know how he was going to do it," Derek Shelton said. "He did a good job with it. He kept us off balance by using his breaking ball and slider."
Steven Matz and Kyle Leahy combined to pitch three scoreless innings of relief while striking out four and not giving up a hit before the Pirates got to Jojo Romero for two earned runs in the ninth.
"We just got some balls to fall," Shelton said of his team's two runs in the ninth. "Bryan hit a ball, Joey had a good at-bat. We gotta continue to go."
The Pirates haven't seemed to do that enough this season. After tonight's game, they have the sixth-worst team batting average (.205) in Major League Baseball -- five of tonight's nine starters are hitting below .200 to start the season -- the seventh-worst on-base percentage (.288), third-worst slugging percentage (.318) and fourth-worst OPS (.606). They are also tied with the Los Angeles Dodgers for the lead-league in strikeouts (115) and have the third-fewest home runs.
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