Cardinals spoil Derek Shelton's managerial debut, beat Pirates

Derek Shelton finally made his long-awaited debut as Pittsburgh Pirates manager, only for the old hitting coach to find his team in a pitcher’s duel.

In a battle of right-handers, Jack Flaherty outdueled Joe Musgrove to lead the St. Louis Cardinals to a season-opening 5-4 win over the Pirates on Friday night at an empty Busch Stadium, as the coronavirus pandemic prevented fans from attending Opening Day of a season delayed by four months and shortened to 60 games.

Shelton said he took a step back to soak in the moment during pregame introductions and in the first inning.

“It’s a unique fraternity. There’s only 30 of us in the world,” Shelton said. “As someone pointed out earlier, it’s a small list of guys who have managed in the big leagues. I took it in. I’m very humbled and honored to have this position. Yeah, I didn’t let the moment go away. I made sure that I took it in. Because if not, my dad would have been really (ticked) at me.”

With the support of a pair of solo home runs by Tyler O’Neill and Dexter Fowler, Flaherty kept the Pirates off the scoreboard through the first six frames giving up two runs in the seventh. Flaherty allowed six hits, striking out six without a walk. The Cardinals added a two-run homer by Paul DeJong in the eighth.

Musgrove successfully mixed his four-seam fastball with the curve, changeup and slider, allowing three runs on five hits (including a pair of solo home runs), with seven strikeouts and three walks in 5²/₃ innings.

“If I can make one improvement on the outing, it’d be getting the breaking balls over for strikes early and the changeups for strikes early,” said Musgrove, who threw 99 pitches, 61 for strikes. “My execution, I thought was pretty good. I mean, the two pitches that I left right over the heart of the plate were the two they did damage on. But other than that, I felt I executed pretty well, especially when we needed a big pitch.”

O’Neill muscled an inside curve from Musgrove into the visiting bullpen in left field for a 394-foot home run to give the Cardinals a 1-0 lead in the third. O’Neill homered five times last season, with three coming against the Pirates.

Flaherty was perfect for three innings before Kevin Newman hit a bloop single to center to lead off the fourth — the first hit of the season for the Pirates — but was forced out at second on Bryan Reynolds’ fielder’s choice. Adam Frazier singled to left to put Reynolds in scoring position, but Flaherty got Josh Bell to fly out to right and struck out Colin Moran to get out of the jam.

Fowler hit Musgrove’s 70th pitch for a leadoff homer in the fifth to right field to give the Cardinals a 2-0 lead. Musgrove saved another run by making a spectacular play on Kolten Wong’s triple to right-center: When the throw skipped past Moran at third base, Musgrove made a sliding stop-and-blind throw from his knees to Jacob Stallings to peg Wong at the plate to end the inning.

Musgrove attributed it to backing up the play and being in the right spot, as the ball got behind Wong and blinded Musgrove.

“I didn’t necessarily see where the plate was, but I knew the angle that I needed to be at,” Musgrove said. “I didn’t really think I had much time at all to get rid of it. As I threw the ball, I saw that I had more time than I thought and kind of wished that I had set my feet a little more.”

Added Shelton: “That was a hell of a play. Really athletic. He was in the right spot. We got a carom off, Wong made an aggressive move. Joe made a nice play, and Jacob made a really nice play at the plate. That’s not an easy play for a catcher.”

In the sixth, however, Musgrove started to wear down. He gave up a one-out single to Paul Goldschmidt, who advanced to second on a wild pitch. After DeJong walked, Chris Carpenter hit into a fielder’s choice to put runners on first and third. Shelton pulled Musgrove with two outs for Clay Holmes, but catcher Yadier Molina hit a bloop single to left to give the Cardinals a 3-0 lead.

The Pirates rallied in the seventh, loading the bases on infield singles by Josh Bell and Jose Osuna. Flaherty struck out Guillermo Heredia, but Stallings singled down the right-field line to score Bell and Moran to cut it to 3-2. With runners on first and third, Flaherty got Dyson to ground out to end the inning.

DeJong’s two-run homer to the left-field bullpen off Richard Rodriguez gave the Cardinals a 5-2 cushion in the eighth. The Cardinals brought in new closer Kwang-hyun Kim, a 32-year-old left-hander from the KBO, for the ninth, only to allow a Bell single and Moran double, followed by an Osuna single through the middle to score both and cut it to 5-4. But Stallings hit into a double play for the final out.

“We were in the ballgame the whole night,” Dyson said. “We were one swing away from winning that ballgame, or tying the ballgame. I felt like, for game one, we showed great signs. We can always look back and improve on that, what we did we wrong and how we could have executed and things like that. We definitely are going to be in tune with that and make sure we clean that up.”

The Pirates and Cardinals play the second game of their three-game opening series at 2:15 p.m. Saturday, with Pirates right-hander Trevor Williams facing Cardinals righty Adam Wainwright, who is in his 15th season.