Starter Trevor Cahill injured in 2nd inning as Cardinals thump Pirates for 2-game sweep

Derek Shelton doesn’t have a crystal ball, so the Pittsburgh Pirates manager couldn’t have predicted the bases-loaded predicaments his starting pitcher would face in the second inning at St. Louis.

The Cardinals intentionally walked a batter to get to Trevor Cahill, only for Jack Flaherty to strike him out to end the top half of the inning. When Cahill loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom half, the Pirates pulled the veteran right-hander because of discomfort in his left calf.

Where the Cardinals escaped one jam, they took advantage of the other by scoring five runs on their way to an 8-5 win Wednesday night at Busch Stadium.

“Hindsight is 20/20,” Shelton said. “Looking back at it now, if we had a crystal ball, maybe we do it differently.”

The NL Central-leading Cardinals (25-18) completed a two-game sweep of the last-place Pirates (17-25), who lost their third consecutive game and sixth in the past nine. They visit Atlanta for a four-game series that starts Thursday.

“Hopefully it’s nothing serious,” Cahill said. “I don’t think it’s anything major, like major major. I don’t know if it was the weather or whatever; hopefully it’s nothing that will affect me long term.”

In his eighth start of the season, the 33-year-old Cahill (1-5) threw only 37 pitches against eight batters before exiting the game. And he got off to a rough start, giving up a leadoff double off the right-field wall to Tommy Edman, who scored on Paul Goldschmidt’s double off the wall for a 1-0 lead.

The Pirates had a chance to answer in the second, when Gregory Polanco led off with a walk and Ben Gamel drew one. With two outs, the Cardinals chose to intentionally walk Michael Perez and load the bases to get to Cahill, who is still adjusting to the National League game after three seasons in the American League and a year with the universal designated hitter. Cahill went down swinging to end the inning.

“I was going on deck thinking I wasn’t going to hit that inning,” Cahill said. “They intentionally walked the guy. I forgot that I had to hit again. I feel like that’s come up a lot of times in the last couple games. I’ve left a small village on base. It’s a tactic other teams use with the pitcher hitting nowadays.”

In the second inning, Cahill walked Harrison Bader and Justin Williams before hitting Edmundo Sosa with a curveball. Shelton said Pirates coaches noticed something was wrong and checked on Cahill, who was having trouble landing on his left leg.

“It got to the point,” Cahill said, “where I felt like I couldn’t really compete any more.”

The Pirates pulled Cahill and brought in Duane Underwood Jr. to face Flaherty, who entered with a better batting average (.143) than three Pirates starters he faced — first baseman Will Craig (.136), left fielder Gamel (.100) and catcher Perez (.089) — and proceeded to drive in the Cardinals’ first run with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly to right.

Underwood had trouble locating his breaking pitches and gave up a two-run single to Edman and back-to-back RBI singles to Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado as the Cardinals increased their lead to 6-0.

“It is a really tough spot,” Shelton said. “You come in, you’re warming up in front of everyone. Most guys usually rush through that, even though they’re told not to. It’s one of the tougher situations a pitcher can come into, bases loaded, nobody out.”

The Pirates got some sign of life when Polanco smashed a Flaherty fastball 395 feet into the right-field seats for a two-run homer, his fourth of the season, to cut their deficit to 6-2. Polanco went 2 for 4 with a walk and three RBIs.

But Pirates rookie right-hander Luis Oviedo gave up a pair of runs in the fifth — on an Edman sacrifice fly and a Dylan Carlson RBI single — to stretch their lead to 8-2. Those were the only runs allowed by Flaherty (8-0), who gave up four hits and four walks while striking out seven on 105 pitches in six innings.

The Pirates rallied with a three-run seventh that started with a four-pitch walk by Erik Gonzalez off Kodi Whitley, who gave up singles to Adam Frazier and Kevin Newman to load the bases and was replaced by lefty Tyler Webb. Bryan Reynolds hit into a fielder’s choice to force out Newman but score Gonzalez and cut it to 8-3.

Polanco, who was 0 for 20 against left-handers this season, singled to right to score Frazier. And pinch hitter Ildemaro Vargas, making his Pirates debut after being claimed off waivers from the Chicago Cubs, singled to left to score Reynolds and trim the Cardinals’ lead to 8-5.

More worrisome than the loss is the possibility that the Pirates lost a third member of their starting rotation to injury, with lefty Steven Brault (lat strain) and righty Chad Kuhl (shoulder) already on the injured list. Shelton said Kuhl will require another rehabilitation start before returning. If Cahill is headed for the IL, the Pirates could bring back righty Miguel Yajure, who allowed one hit in five scoreless innings against San Francisco on May 14.

“Hopefully it’s nothing serious, just tightening up,” Cahill said. “Being the land leg, it gets tough to pitch through something that’s in your land leg because you’re trying to feel the ground and pitch into it. Hopefully it’s fine in a couple days. If not, we’ll regroup.”