PITTSBURGH -- Wednesday afternoon marked the second straight game that a Cardinals starting pitcher wasn't going to need a whole lot of contributions from his offense to get the club back into the win column.
The run support just never came.
Right-hander Sonny Gray was mostly sharp through 6 1/3 innings, but the St. Louis offense’s consecutive scoreless streak pushed to 28 innings in a 5-0 loss and series sweep to the Pirates at PNC Park. The series marked the first time the Cards haven't scored a run in a three-game set since October 2015 (Braves).
“I mean, yeah, I felt good,” said Gray, who took his third loss of the season. “Obviously, don’t like the way it ended, but that was it.”
Despite getting charged with four runs, Gray’s final line doesn't do his outing much justice. Gray was similarly economical with his pitch count through the first five innings as he was in his previous outing where he went the distance with a one-hitter against Cleveland.
Gray needed just 63 pitches to get through six innings against Pittsburgh, including an eight-pitch fifth and a seven-pitch sixth. He only allowed one extra-base hit throughout his outing, and departed after allowing back-to-back singles in the seventh.
Right-handed reliever Riley O’Brien recorded the second out of the frame after entering from the bullpen before serving up a pair of two-out base hits and a walk, pushing across three more runs for Pittsburgh and increasing St. Louis’ deficit to five.
Gray struck out six and walked just one on 78 pitches (53 strikes).
“I felt like he did a really nice job all the way throughout, especially on five days' rest,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “For him to be able to go [nine innings last time out] and then give us what he did today, I mean, that’s giving us a real shot. We just had an inability to score runs.”
A two-out single in the ninth inning was the Cardinals’ only hit after the fourth inning. They had several hard-hit balls, but just seemed to be chasing that one big hit, stranding a total of 20 runners on base in the final two games of the series.
“It’s very frustrating when you hit balls really hard just right at people,” second baseman Brendan Donovan said.
As was the theme throughout the series, playing without infielders Willson Contreras and Nolan Arenado for some of it, the Cardinals got runners on base and over into scoring positions in the first and second innings, but were unable to get them home on either occasion in the finale.
“Those are three key parts to our offense and when you don’t have them, it's tough to score,” Marmol said. “I felt like we actually put some decent swings on the ball today, we just couldn't find grass. Everything we hit found a glove. With those guys not in the lineup, it made it that much tougher.”
Still, Marmol said he liked the approach of his hitters and chalked up the lack of offense more to the team’s poor fortune.
“Today, I actually liked some of the swings we took, it was just right at people,” Marmol said. “When you look at how they scored their runs, a lot of it just found holes.”
Donovan said the Cards won’t take any time before putting this series behind them. They’ve done too many good things as of late to let it damper things and they sit tied for the third NL Wild Card spot, but percentage points behind the Padres.
“Obviously the series is frustrating, but it’s just one little blip on the radar of 162 [games],” Donovan said. “So, is it frustrating? Absolutely. But they just beat us. They’re playing good ball. We were playing good ball and they shut us down, so, [we’re] on to Chicago.”
The Cardinals’ skipper agreed.
“We swept the last [series against Cleveland], got swept here. We’ll flush this one, get some rest and get ready for tomorrow,” Marmol said.