Wednesday Playbacks: Pirates Take Two From St. Louis on the Road
Early in the 2020 season, the Pittsburgh Pirates had a road trip in which they had to face the St. Louis Cardinals for three games and the Cincinnati Reds for four games. However, due to positive COVID-19 tests on both teams, only two of those games were played and the rest had to be made up. As a result, the Pirates would have to schedule a couple of doubleheaders later in the season to make up for the lost games. This meant implementing the new seven-inning doubleheader rule that was established for 2020. Rather than playing two nine-inning games, the teams would instead play two seven-inning games to keep players on the field for a shorter amount of time.
The first time the Pirates would do this was on August 27th, 2020, when they went on the road to face the St. Louis Cardinals. The Pirates entered the game on a bit of a roll having won three of their last five games via a sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers. One of their most consistent pitchers during 2020, Chad Kuhl, was taking the mound in game one and he was followed by rookie Cody Ponce, who was making his first Major League start in Game Two. The Cardinals had already played a couple of doubleheaders that year due to the fact that they missed nearly two weeks of play. Let's play it back as the Pirates won the day taking both games and almost got themselves back in the playoff hunt.
Kuhl as a Cucumber in Game One
With Joe Musgrove and Mitch Keller both out with injuries, Chad Kuhl had officially become a member of the Pirate's starting rotation. He had impressed after coming back from Tommy John Surgery and serving as the second half of the Brault/Kuhl piggyback. However, this would be his first real test as he was going against the Cardinals, who were one of the hottest teams in the National League Central. Going against Kuhl was Cardinals rookie standout Kwang Hyun Kim, who hadn't yet lost a game in his two appearances. The game started out in a pitcher's duel with the team's combining for two hits and just three base runners over the first three innings of play. Both teams were getting used to pitchers they either hadn't seen or hadn't seen in a while and the pitchers had the upper hand.
It wasn't until the fourth inning that the Pirates were able to take advantage of a Cardinals mistake and breakthrough. Cole Tucker started the inning by reaching base on a fielding error to give the Pirates their second base runner of the game. Kevin Newman would lineout to centerfield and Josh Bell walked to put runners at first and second with one out. It looked like Kim might get out of it when he struck out Bryan Reynolds, but Jacob Stallings capitalized with a two-out single scoring Tucker and giving the Pirates a 1-0 lead. Gregory Polanco flew out to end the inning and Chad Kuhl preserved the lead in the bottom half of the inning allowing one hit and the Pirates led 1-0 after four innings.
However, it didn't take long for the Cardinals to respond as their captain got them going on offense. Catcher Yadier Molina started off the top of the fifth inning with a solo home run on the second pitch he saw that tied the game at 1-1. After a Matt Carpenter flyout, Dexter Fowler got the Cardinals back in business with a one-out single. Dylan Carson would then flyout, and Fowler had his eyes on scoring position and tried to take off during the next at-bat. Stallings nailed him at the plate, and the play stops after a challenge ending the inning with the game tied at 1-1. Both pitchers finished six innings of work and turned things over to the bullpen in the seventh. Giovanny Gallegos pitched a scoreless seventh for the Cardinals and Chris Stratton did the same for the Pirates and the game moved to extra-innings with the score tied at 1-1.
The Pirates got to work right away in extra-innings as Jarrod Dyson would start as the courtesy runner on second base. Erik Gonzalez struck out to start the inning, but Tucker drove a ball to center field scoring Dyson and giving the Pirates a 2-1 lead. Newman grounded out for the second out of the inning, and then the Pirates had a two-out offensive surge. Tucker had gotten to third on a wild pitch and the Newman groundout, and Josh Bell walked to put runners at the corners. Bryan Reynolds would then single in Tucker, and Stallings would reach on a fielding error to score Bell and give the Pirates a 4-1 lead. With the lead in hand, Richard Rodriguez entered the game and things went less than smoothly.
With the courtesy runner on second, Dylan Carson singled to start the inning putting runners on the corners. Kolten Wong hit a sacrifice fly to bring the score to 4-2, but a Tommy Edman single put runners back on the corners with one out. Paul Goldschmidt would then make it a one-score game with an RBI single, and the Pirates lead was trimmed to just 4-3. However, Rodriguez would bare down and strikeout both Brad Miller and Max Schrock to record the save and give the Pirates a 4-3 win. It was the Pirate's fourth win in their last six games and moved their record to 8-19 heading into game two of the day.
Stellar Debut for Cody Ponce
Game two of the doubleheader had the element of the unknown behind it. Right-Handed pitcher Cody Ponce was called on as the 29th man and was making his first Major League start. He was going against a rookie for the Cardinals as well in Johan Oviedo as both teams would have to adjust to starting pitchers they had never seen before. Game two started out almost the same as the first game with both teams going through an adjustment period. The Pirates had their first six batters of the game retired, while the Cardinals put traffic on the base paths, but Ponce was able to strand all four base runners and keep the score tied at 0-0 after two innings of work.
The Pirates would reward Ponce's efforts in the top of the third inning, scoring both of their runs. Jose Osuna would fly out to start the inning before JT Riddle walked to give the Pirates their first base runner. John Ryan Murphy would single and a wild pitch moved runners to second and third with one out. Erik Gonzalez would follow that up with a single scoring Riddle and giving the Pirates a 1-0 lead. Adam Frazier would extend the lead with the team's third consecutive single to push the lead to 2-0. Reynolds and Bell would each ground into forceouts to end the inning, but the Pirates held the lead at 2-0. Ponce responded with another scoreless inning in the bottom of the third, walking one batter, and the Pirates held a 2-0 lead after three innings.
Ponce finished off the next 3.2 innings of work and shut the Cardinals down retiring 11 of the next 13 Cardinals that he faced. Geoff Hartlieb finished off the sixth inning and Nik Turley came in to get the save, the first of his Major League career. The Pirates now moved to 9-19 with the win and swept the Cardinals in a doubleheader to complete the short two-game sweep of the series. After the game, both Turley and Ponce got doused with Gatorade in celebration of accomplishing their first win and first save respectively. It was a bright spot on what was otherwise a pretty dismal 2019 season.
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