Pirates post third straight shutout against Cardinals

Mitch Keller pitched seven scoreless innings Wednesday and combined with Dennis Santana and Isaac Mattson to lead Pittsburgh to a 5-0 win over the visiting St. Louis Cardinals, the Pirates’ third consecutive shutout in the series sweep.
Keller (3-10) struck out seven, walked one and gave up five hits and helped the Pirates record their season-high sixth straight victory. Pittsburgh pitchers have held opponents scoreless for 31 consecutive innings — their longest such streak since 2015.
After sweeping just one prior series all season, the Pirates won all six games of their homestand against the New York Mets and Cardinals. According to Pittsburgh’s home broadcast, it was the first time ever that a team scored 43 or more runs and allowed only four over a six-game span.
It was also the first time the Pirates shut out the Cardinals three consecutive times since Oct. 2-3, 1976.
St. Louis has lost five of its past eight games. All five of those losses have been shutouts. The Cardinals have been held scoreless for 28 consecutive innings.
Tommy Pham and Isiah Kiner-Falefa each had two RBIs to lead the Pirates offensively and each had run-scoring singles to key a four-run bottom of the seventh inning, which broke the game open.
Pham, who also drove in the game’s first run in the bottom of the second on an RBI single, drove in Nick Gonzales with a one-out single off Cardinals starter Sonny Gray (8-3) in the seventh. Ke’Bryan Hayes singled on the previous at-bat to extend his hitting streak to 11 games.
Hayes then scored, along with Pham, on Kiner-Falefa’s single.
Gray, who threw a one-hitter in his prior start, allowed four runs on five hits and one walk while striking out six in 6 1/3 innings.
The Cardinals mustered six hits overall, including doubles by Brendan Donovan, Jose Fermin and Alec Burleson.
St. Louis loaded the bases in the first inning with two outs when Keller allowed a leadoff double to Donovan, walked Burleson two batters later and hit Lars Nootbaar two batters after that. But Keller ended the threat by striking out Thomas Saggese.