Mistakes cost Pirates, who drop below .500 after loss to Cardinals

Searching for an outfielder, the Pittsburgh Pirates turned to the waiver wire to find Ka’ai Tom. The Rule 5 pick with the memorable name had a forgettable starting debut.

Tom misplayed two fly balls in left field that fell for RBI doubles and made a baserunning gaffe that might have cost the Pirates a run, yet those mistakes were overshadowed by two pitches the St. Louis Cardinals sent over the fence.

Tyler O’Neill crushed a leadoff homer in the fourth, and pinch hitter Matt Carpenter hit a three-run shot in the sixth as the Cardinals cruised to a 7-3 win over the Pirates on Friday night before 5,953 at PNC Park.

“We did a couple things that contributed to giving them runs,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “Anytime you give away runs, or giveaway outs, it definitely attributes to a loss. We’ve played well and, tonight, we just didn’t play very well.”

The loss was the second consecutive for the Pirates (12-13), dropping them back below .500 and 1 1/2 games behind the Cardinals (14-12) for second place in the NL Central.

It was a rough night from the start for Tom, who was claimed off waivers from the Oakland A’s on April 21. Dylan Carlson doubled off the Clemente Wall in right field, then scored when Nolan Arenado dropped a bloop under the glove of a diving Tom in shallow left to give the Cardinals a 1-0 lead in the first inning.

Tom had another mishap on an Arenado pop fly to left in the third. Shortstop Kevin Newman lost track of the ball, and Tom let it drop between them for another RBI double that made it 2-0. Shelton said Tom either lost it in the wind or got a poor jump.

“I think stuff like that’s gonna happen. New ballpark, first time he’s been out there,” Shelton said. “Kind of adapt and adjust.”

Tom only compounded his problems in the bottom half of the inning. After drawing a leadoff walk — his first of three on the night — he rounded second base on JT Brubaker’s sacrifice bunt and turned toward third only to be thrown out in a 1-4-6 double play.

“I think he just got a little aggressive,” Shelton said, “because Nolan vacated, and Goldy (Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt) made a nice play on it.”

What made Tom’s mistake worse was he could have scored from second when Adam Frazier followed with a bloop single that bounced just inside the left-field line.

Brubaker (2-2) took the loss despite having as many strikeouts (seven) as hits without allowing a walk in five innings. But O’Neill hit Brubaker’s first pitch of the fourth inning for a 426-foot home run that cleared the bullpens in left-center, his fifth shot of the season, to give the Cardinals a 3-0 lead.

“I tried to rip it and threw it down the middle and let the movement take care of it,” Brubaker said. “It was one of those just spinners. He stuck with it, hung on it and just took it a long way.”

Newman snapped out of a funk with a two-hit game to bump his batting average to .205, and his RBI single scored Bryan Reynolds to cut it to 3-1 in the fourth. With runners on first and second, however, Gant struck out Tom to escape the jam and end the inning.

Another baserunning gaffe prevented the Pirates from scoring in the fifth. Wilmer Difo pinch hit for Brubaker and singled to right, and Frazier drew a walk before Gonzalez hit one into the ground in front of home plate. Gonzalez froze, believing it was foul. Cardinals catcher Andrew Knizner tagged out Gonzalez and threw to Arenado, who tagged out Difo as he slid into third for a double play.

Gant (2-2) earned the win, after giving up one run on three hits while walking five Pirates and striking out two in five innings.

Tom got Bronx cheers from the crowd in the sixth when he caught a line drive to left by leadoff hitter Paul DeJong. But Duane Underwood Jr. gave up a single to O’Neill and walked Knizner to put two runners on base. Matt Carpenter pinch-hit for Gant and smacked an 0-2 pitch to right-center for his fifth home run — and second pinch-hit, three-run homer in as many days — to give the Cardinals a 6-1 lead.

The Pirates staged a sixth-inning rally when they loaded the bases against Tyler Webb. The Cardinals brought in Kodi Whitley, recalled when Andrew Miller was placed on the injured list with a toe injury, and he allowed one run to score on a balk and another on a wild pitch to cut it to 6-3. Whitley walked pinch hitter Todd Frazier on four pitches to put runners on first and third but got Adam Frazier to ground out.

Clay Holmes hit the first two batters he faced in the ninth, and Justin Williams scored from third when Adam Frazier fumbled a two-out grounder at second for an error as the Cardinals went up, 7-3.

The Pirates’ frustration boiled over in the bottom of the ninth, when pinch hitter Phillip Evans argued a called third strike and was ejected by home plate umpire James Hoye. Evans had to be separated from Hoye by Pirates manager Derek Shelton.

It was a fitting finish to a forgettable game.

“At the major league level, those are oftentimes deciders in a game,” Newman said. “We have been playing really well and doing really well in those aspects, so that’s something we pride ourselves on. And, yeah, we’ll flush (this game) and come back and continue to play how we’ve been playing the last couple weeks.”