Rich Hill delivers deepest start for Pirates, who sweep Cardinals for 5th straight win

Rich Hill treats every day he’s scheduled to start as the perfect day to pitch, so an 11:35 a.m. start for a game livestreamed on Peacock was no bother for the 43-year-old left-hander.

After delivering his deepest start of the season for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Hill received a standing ovation Sunday from the 22,947 at PNC Park when he left with two outs and a one-run lead in the seventh inning.

“He was the perfect guy,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “The fact that we have three rookies in our rotation, we have a veteran guy who knows how to prepare, how to get himself ready. If we’re gonna have a game like that, I think he’s the guy to do it because he knows how to prepare.”

Ji Hwan Bae’s two-run single in the first inning gave the Pirates an early lead, and closer David Bednar notched his fourth consecutive save as the Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-1, to sweep the three-game series.

It was the fifth consecutive win for the Pirates (31-27), who moved into a temporary first-place tie in the NL Central with the Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers later bested the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday and moved back into sole possession of first place.

It also marked the first time the Pirates swept the Cardinals at home since April 27-29, 2018, when Nick Kingham took a perfect game into the seventh inning of a 5-0 win in his major-league debut. Sweeping the reigning division champions was a good measuring stick for the Pirates.

“They have a very good team, let’s face it. That’s a good lineup, and they’ve been perennially very, very good. And I think that that’s something to obviously take stock of,” Hill said. “We know we have a very good team. We’ve had meetings in here, and we talk about it and reinforce it and just continue to go out there and give that effort every single night and understand that, (if) we continue to put in the work, it’ll start the show every night on the field.”

The Pirates loaded the bases in the first inning against Miles Mikolas (4-2) with singles by Bryan Reynolds, Jack Suwinski and Ke’Bryan Hayes, and Bae hit a two-out bloop single to shallow center to drive in Reynolds and Suwinski for a 2-0 lead.

Hayes (3 for 4) and Bae (2 for 4) were stranded when Rodolfo Castro grounded out to first. The Pirates left nine runners on base, including runners at second and third in the fifth inning on another Castro groundout to first.

The Cardinals, however, couldn’t get going against Hill (5-5), who struck out six while allowing four hits and three walks with one hit batsman while throwing 62 of his 96 pitches for strikes in 6²⁄₃ innings. It was his longest outing since striking out 11 in seven scoreless for Boston in a 5-1 win over Tampa Bay Aug. 27.

Hill allowed only two hits through the first six innings, although he walked the leadoff batter in the second, third and fourth innings.

“It definitely wasn’t the recipe we drew up,” said Pirates catcher Austin Hedges, who went 2 for 3 with a double. “I think he just needed to settle into each inning today. Obviously, the results were outstanding.”

Hill managed to pitch his way out of trouble each time and retired 11 consecutive batters before giving up a two-out solo home run to Andrew Knizner, who drove a 1-0 cutter 419 feet to right to cut it to 2-1. After Tommy Edman followed with a single to left, Shelton turned to Dauri Moreta, who struck out Paul Goldschmidt to leave Edman stranded.

Shelton emphasized the importance of Hill eating innings after the Pirates used eight pitchers in Saturday’s 4-3 win.

“It was huge. That’s what veteran starters do,” Shelton said. “He’s very aware of how we used our bullpen. He went out and executed pitches, was able to mix and match against a right-handed lineup with the exception of Gorman, who hits left-handed. He kept ’em off-balance the entire day.”

The Pirates got a scoreless eighth from Yohan Ramirez and turned to Bednar in the ninth for the third game in a row. Bednar gave up a one-out single to Luken Baker, who had notched his first career hit in the second inning, but right fielder Connor Joe made a nice catch on a Jordan Walker fly ball. Bednar struck out Knizner for his 13th save of the season as the Pirates followed an 8-18 May with a 3-0 start in June as the Oakland A’s visit for a three-game series starting Monday.

“It’s huge,” Bednar said. “They’re a division rival. We started the month off strong, and now we’re just going to try and keep it rolling.”