Pirates break out bats, gloves, arms in victory against Cardinals

The Pittsburgh Pirates assembled the three elements necessary to achieve winning baseball — hitting, pitching, fielding — and the result was their first victory of the season, 9-4 against the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday in front of 40,027 in Busch Stadium.

First, the bats emerged when the Pirates scored seven runs on seven hits in the third and fourth innings, including first baseman Michael Chavis’ second career grand slam. It was the first home run of the season for the Pirates, who managed only two runs in the first two games of the series.

“That kind of situation the pressure’s on the pitcher,” Chavis said on AT&T SportsNet. “So I just tried to get a good pitch to hit and put a good swing on it.”

By the fifth inning, eight of the Pirates’ nine batters — with the exception of Yoshi Tsutsugo — collected at least one hit for a total of 11. Overall, the Pirates finished with 15 (equal to their total in the first two games). Second baseman Diego Castillo, who made the first start of his career, and Chavis contributed three each.

But Chavis believed pitching had as much to do with the victory as anything the Pirates did with their bats and gloves.

“I think the big thing is after that first inning, pitching kind of set the tone, throwing strikes, throwing fastballs,” he said.

After the Cardinals scored three times in the first inning, Bryse Wilson and the bullpen were in almost total control.

Wilson threw three scoreless innings (second through fourth) and relief pitchers Miguel Yajure, Heath Hembree and Wil Crowe worked the final five, allowing the Cardinals only seven hits. Yajure got credit for his first major-league victory because Wilson didn’t work the requisite five innings.

Manager Derek Shelton also was pleased with how Wilson worked, even though he pulled him after four innings and 64 pitches.

“I thought early in the game he was a little tentative,” Shelton told reporters in St. Louis. “Then, he started to get in a groove. The fastball played. He started to use the two-seamer a little bit more, and I think that helped out.”

Wilson did as much with his head as he did with his right arm.

“Made some adjustments for how we’re going to sequence pitches,” he said. ‘They were jumping on the heater a little bit early, so we switched up, pitched them a little bit backwards and it turned out to work really well.”

The big pitch might have been the one in the second that forced Paul Goldschmidt to bounce into an inning-ending double play.

“Big momentum swing. It led to five runs the next half inning,” Wilson said.

Crowe, who made 25 starts last season, was aggressive in his relief role.

“Today was probably about as good as I’ve seen Wil Crowe in two years,” Shelton said. “His tempo was outstanding. One of the pitches he threw to (strike out Yadier Molina) in the ninth was a 96 mph fastball, down and away, that he just drove down there.

“We told him we’re going to use him in different roles and (in the eighth and ninth innings), he came in and saved us from having to use closers (David) Bednar and (Chris) Stratton, and went through the heart of their order.”

Pirates gloves gave Wilson a huge lift, especially on Goldschmidt’s double play.

Ke’Bryan Hayes started an around-the-horn double play, punctuated by Chavis’ long stretch at first base.

In the third, shortstop Kevin Newman fielded a ground ball behind second base, made a 360-degree turn and threw out O’Neill. In the fifth, Hayes lunged to his right to snare Paul DeJong’s 91.6 mph line drive.

“I’m just lucky to be on the end that just catches the ball,” Chavis said. “They’re the ones doing the acrobatics. Just getting to watch those guys is so much fun.”

Shelton said practice and a little help from the Cardinals led to the outstanding fielding performance.

“The way we practice is an important thing and the fact that they hit the ball to our third baseman and he’s really good,” Shelton said, smiling.

Shelton also was appreciative of a fourth element that led to the Pirates’ final run in the eighth, increased their lead to five and allowed Shelton the luxury of saving his closers for another day.

With Ben Gamel on second base after a double, Hayes lifted a fly ball to right field. Gamel tagged up, but hid his intention.

“He went back to the bag slowly,” Shelton said, “kind of deked and then came hard, got himself in the throwing lane and we were able to create another run.”

When the throw hit Gamel as he was sliding, the baseball bounced away and Gamel scored.

“We have to be aggressive,” Shelton said. “We have to play like that.”