Adam Frazier homers in 1st as Pirates right ship with win over Cardinals

ST. LOUIS — Adam Frazier opened the game with a homer, Starling Marte drove in the winner and Trevor Williams allowed one run in seven solid innings as the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 2-1, on Friday night.

Marte’s RBI single off of Andrew Miller (1-2) broke a 1-1 tie in the eighth and helped the Pirates snap a two-game skid.

Williams (2-1) stranded seven runners through the first four innings and pitched around two fielding errors in the fourth inning. He allowed nine hits and limited the Cardinals to one hit in seven at-bats with runners in scoring position.

The Cardinals finished with one hit in nine at-bats with runners in scoring position, one night after getting a whopping 11 hits in that situation. St. Louis lost for the seventh time in nine games.

The only run allowed by Williams was shift-aided. Paul DeJong grounded a slow roller to second, but Frazier was playing on the third base side of the bag and couldn’t get to the ball in time to make a throw. The infield hit scored Yairo Munoz, tying the score 1-1 in the seventh inning.

Kyle Crick pitched out of a jam in the eighth inning with runners on first and third. Felipe Vazquez struck out Paul Goldschmidt to cap a perfect ninth and earn his 11th save.

Frazier drove a 3-2 fastball from Adam Wainwright over the right-field wall to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead. It was the second time this year — and fourth time in his career — Frazier began a game with a home run.

The Pirates’ Josh Bell extended his hitting streak to 10 games in the first inning and saved a run with a diving stop on a smash by Matt Carpenter that ended the second inning.

Wainwright went a season-high seven innings and retired the final 10 batters he faced. He struck out eight — five looking — and allowed five hits and no walks.

It was the 250th time that Yadier Molina caught a Wainwright start, moving the duo to ninth all-time in the majors ahead of Early Wynn and Jim Hegan (1949-1957 Cleveland Indians).

Molina was presented with the 2018 Roberto Clemente Award before the game for his humanitarian efforts in his native Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. Luis Clemente, the second-oldest son of Roberto, and Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith presented the award.

Pirates RHP Chris Archer (right thumb irritation) threw a four-inning, 60-pitch simulated game to teammates Corey Dickerson, Lonnie Chisenhall and Elias Diaz on Friday. He said he had no issues gripping the ball on any of his pitches.

“I threw everything, everything felt fine, no pitch was affected, body feels good,” Archer said. “I’m not sure exactly where we go from here, but I’m ready to pitch five days from now in a big league game.”

The Pirates will send RHP Jordan Lyles (2-1, 2.20 ERA) to the mound against the Cardinals and RHP Miles Mikolas (4-2, 4.02 ERA) in the third of a four-game series Saturday. Lyles gave up one run in a season-high 6²/₃ innings in a no-decision against Oakland on Sunday. Mikolas pitched seven scoreless innings and didn’t walk a batter for the first time this season against Philadelphia on Monday.