ST. LOUIS -- Johan Oviedo gave Pirates manager Don Kelly every reason to go off script on Monday night, but the skipper wouldn’t budge.
Held to a pitch count of around 60 pitches in just his third start after a right lat strain derailed the first half of his season, Oviedo made the most of his time dominating the Cardinals through four efficient innings in an eventual 7-6 walk-off loss at Busch Stadium.
“I thought he threw the ball really well,” Kelly said. “Looked really sharp, you know, and stuff was good. Fastball was electric, and kept them off balance with the offspeed, and went to the curveball really effectively there in the middle of the outing.”
Oviedo allowed just one run on three hits and one walk. He struck out five and 35 of his 53 pitches were strikes.
“Feel good, you know, that's kind of what I'm looking for in every outing,” Oviedo said. “Try to maximize pitches, try to get quick outs so I can go deeper in the game.”
It was the second straight encouraging start for Oviedo, who allowed one run on just two hits over five innings against Toronto on Wednesday.
The only real trouble Oviedo faced was a bases loaded, no outs situation in the second. But Oviedo was able to limit the damage to just one run on a sacrifice fly sandwiched between a strikeout and a weak popup.
“That's part of being a starter,” Oviedo said. “You're going to have, you know, trouble on the way. Just got to keep locking in and focus on the next pitch.”
Even with the strong performance, Kelly stuck with the script and didn’t push Oviedo, who also missed the entire 2024 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery.
Oviedo left with a 4-1 lead. The former Cardinal, who was acquired by the Pirates via a trade on Aug. 2, 2022, has allowed three earned runs or fewer in his first six career starts against St. Louis.
“I just try to be the best version of myself every time that I go out there trying to compete,” Oviedo said.
But the Cardinals scored five runs in the fifth, all charged to reliever Andrew Heaney, and eventually ended the Pirates’ four-game winning streak with a walk-off home run by Alec Burleson with two outs in the ninth off Dennis Santana.
The outing started promisingly enough for Heaney, who retired two of the first three batters he faced. But he couldn’t get the third out, surrendering four straight hits, the last of which was Nolan Gorman’s double to give the Cardinals a 5-4 lead.
Colin Holderman entered and surrendered an RBI single to Thomas Saggese for an insurance run before getting the elusive third out.
“Hean got the first out, and then some balls caught too much of the plate,” Kelly said. “Just struggled putting guys away in that inning, and it's hard ... we have to get the ball off the plate a little bit when we get two strikes there.”
The Pirates clawed back with a Nick Gonzales sacrifice fly in the seventh and Ronny Simon’s RBI double in the ninth tied it at 6.
Bryan Reynolds and Spencer Horwitz hit back-to-back homers in the third and combined for four RBIs. It was the third time this season Pittsburgh has hit consecutive home runs and the first since Oneil Cruz and Tommy Pham went back to back against the Mets on June 29.
Reynolds’ blast traveled a Statcast-projected 432 feet and landed over the first section of seats beyond the right-field wall. The two-run homer moved Reynolds into a tie with Kevin Young for 11th on the Pirates’ franchise list with 136.
Three pitches later, Horwitz drove a Michael McGreevy cutter 413 feet to make it 4-1. It was Horwitz’s second RBI of the game after he scored Simon on a groundout to give the Bucs an early lead in the first.
Pittsburgh has scored 24 runs in its last four games.
“That commitment to the plan and the approach, staying in the middle of the field and attacking the heart of the plate, I think the guys are doing a good job,” Kelly said. “Need to continue to get better, especially with runners in scoring position.”