Yasmani Grandal hit a home run, and Nick Gonzales brought in the winning run with a single in the eighth inning, leading the Pittsburgh Pirates to a 3-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Thursday night, ending a three-game losing streak.
Pirates starter Luis Ortiz gave up two runs on five hits and struck out seven batters in six innings.
“My whole focus today was to get weak contact, and the strikeouts showed up,” Ortiz said through an interpreter. “That was not in my mind to strike people out, but making quality pitches, that’s what happened and we’re pretty happy.”
Carmen Mlodzinski (4-5) and Dennis Santana each pitched one scoreless inning, while Aroldis Chapman closed the game in the ninth to earn his 10th save out of 15 opportunities.
This was Chapman’s 331st career save, moving him ahead of John Wetteland for 16th place on the all-time list.
“He’s had a heck of a career,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “He’s making a very strong case to be a Hall of Famer. He’s the all-time left-handed leader as a reliever in strikeouts. This guy just continues to get better with age. He’s very impressive.”
Cardinals starter Erick Fedde allowed one run on four hits and struck out three batters.
“There’s still some room to improve on my movement,” Fedde said. “I felt like things were really late today just in the sense of kind of the swings I was getting. They seemed a little more defensive than they have been, and to that means my stuff’s going to be late and a little harder to see. That’s a great sign.”
St. Louis (77-76) fell eight games behind the New York Mets (85-68) in the National League wild-card race and will be mathematically eliminated from postseason contention with one more loss or a win by the Mets.
