Cardinals punctuate 3-game sweep of Pirates with 18-4 victory

The situation was perfect for the Pittsburgh Pirates to avoid a sweep of their three-game series with the St. Louis Cardinals.

St. Louis starter Steven Matz left the game with left shoulder stiffness after throwing four pitches. Pirates leadoff hitter Ke’Bryan Hayes was still at the plate when Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol was forced to find 27 outs from his bullpen.

As it turned out, the Pirates made it easy on Marmol, fumbling the opportunity in an 18-4 loss Sunday in front of a crowd of 13,510 at PNC Park. It marked the eighth time the Pirates (16-24) lost a game by six or more runs and opened the door for the victorious Chicago Cubs to catch the Pirates in a tie for third place in the National League Central.

The winners (23-18) amassed 20 hits while every Cardinals player who appeared in the game contributed at least one hit, one run scored and one RBI.

The Cardinals’ 18 runs were two fewer than the Pirates’ total in the past 10 games, a span in which they are 3-7 and in the midst of a three-game losing streak.

Meanwhile, the Pirates’ weak lineup — the bottom four of Yoshi Tsutsugo, Rodolfo Castro, Josh VanMeter and Tyler Heineman came into the game with an aggregate .166 batting average — managed only four hits and no runs in eight innings.

And they weren’t hitting against Bob Gibson or Adam Wainwright. Relievers Angel Rondon (a rookie making his 2022 debut) and T.J. McFarland (a veteran with a 9.00 ERA this season) had little trouble keeping the home team scoreless.

“They lose their starter,” manager Derek Shelton said, “and all of a sudden they go to a bullpen day and we don’t have good at-bats.”

There’s no questioning how badly the offense is struggling, but the pitching staff was the bigger problem.

Bryse Wilson, making only his second start since April 21, lasted only 1 2/3 innings, allowing seven runs, six hits and two walks.

Shelton has bounced Wilson from the rotation to the bullpen and back, with shaky results. In his past four appearances (13 1/3 innings), he has given up 20 runs (16 earned) and 24 hits.

“He’s got to command the baseball better,” Shelton said. “It’s either off the plate or in the middle of the plate, and you can’t pitch in the big leagues effectively if you don’t throw strikes, and when you throw strikes, (they) are in the middle of the plate.”

Wilson said his problems “come down to execution.”

“I felt like I took the same mentality into the first inning as I would when I was coming out of the bullpen,” he said. “It just didn’t go the way I wanted it to.

“I walked two guys and got behind on some counts. Soft contact really killed me. Just didn’t execute the way I should have.”

The four pitchers who followed Wilson also were ineffective. Tyler Beede, Chase De Jong, Anthony Banda and VanMeter, who started the game at second base, were mainly around the plate. But they surrendered 11 runs on 14 hits in 7 1/3 innings.

VanMeter threw as soft as 44 mph, and Harrison Bader deposited that pitch 401 feet from home plate into the left-field seats.

Three batters later, Cardinals great Albert Pujols, who didn’t start, hit the second of his two homers on the day – a three-run shot — to give him 683 in his career (fifth all-time) and 32 at PNC Park (the most by an opponent).

The Pirates scored four runs in the ninth to avoid their fourth shutout defeat in the past 10 games. But by that time, the game had turned into a circus. After an eight-minute rain delay in the top of the inning, veteran Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, pitching for the first time in his 19-year career, gave up home runs to Yoshi Tsutsugo and Jack Suwinski.

There were the requisite fireworks after those homers, but Shelton was more interested in the previous eight innings.

“We didn’t play well,” Shelton said. “We didn’t play well in this series. We didn’t play well against a really good team.

“That just speaks to execution. We have to be better offensively.”