ST. LOUIS — Thursday’s Game Report: Pirates 3, Cardinals 2
Brendan Donovan did all he could to try to lead the Cardinals to a sweep of their four-game series against the Pirates on Thursday night at Busch Stadium.
He just couldn’t do it by himself.
Donovan had the second four-hit game of his career – but his teammates could only get two other hits, both by Paul Goldschmidt – and the Pirates were able to salvage the final game of the series.
Donovan drove in both of the Cardinals runs, with a single in the fourth and a double in the sixth, both times following a single by Goldschmidt.
He led off the ninth with his fourth hit, putting the tying run on base, but Aroldis Chapman retired the next three batters to end the game.
The Cardinals are all but officially eliminated from the playoff race as they fell eight games out of the third wild-card spot with just nine games left in the season. They need to win four of those games to avoid consecutive losing seasons (in non-strike seasons) for the first time since 1958-59.
Here is how Thursday night’s game broke down:
At the plate: The rest of the Cardinals other than Donovan and Goldschmidt were a combined 0-of-24 against the Pirates with nine strikeouts. Their other three baserunners came on walks … Their best chance to add runes came in the fourth when they had runners on first and second with no outs and one run in before Lars Nootbaar hit into a double play and Jordan Walker struck out … Donovan had both of their hits in the team’s seven at-bats with a runner in scoring position.
On the mound: Erick Fedde held the Pirates to one run over six innings but the Pirates tied the game on a home run by Yasmani Grandal off Andrew Kittredge in the seventh and scored the winning run in the eighth on a two-out RBI single by Nick Gonazles off Ryan Fernandez. A two-out walk by JoJo Romero put that runner on base before Fernandez gave up consecutive singles.
Key stat: This was the fourth time this season a Cardinals player had at least four hits in a game. Donovan joined Walker (a five-hit game), Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado.
Worht noting: Donovan’s first career four-hit game also came against the Pirates ar Busch Stadium, on June 14, 2022 in the second game of a doubleheader … Cardinals pitching prospect Quinn Mathews surpassed the 200-strikeout mark for the season on Thursday night for Memphis. He is only the second Cardinals’ minor-leaguer to reach that milestone since 1990, the first to do it since Rick Ankiel recorded 222 strikeouts in 1998.
Looking ahead: The Cardinals will open the final series of the season at Busch Stadium on Friday night with the first of three games against the Cleveland Guardians, who will try to clinch the AL Central over the weekend. Kyle Gibson will start Friday night for the Cardinals.
