Young pitchers get back on track, lead Pirates past Cardinals

Their first starts of the season didn’t go as Carmen Mlodzinski or Thomas Harrington had planned, so the Pittsburgh Pirates right-handers were eager to prove themselves Monday night.

In a role reversal, the reliever-turned-starter Mlodzinski had six strikeouts in five innings and the starter-turned-reliever Harrington added five strikeouts in protecting the Pirates’ lead over the final four innings against the St. Louis Cardinals to earn his first career save.

The Pirates had hot bats on a frigid night, collecting a season-best 10 hits and scoring their most runs in a game this season. Joey Bart hit a home run and added an RBI triple in a four-run seventh inning for an 8-4 series-opening win Monday night before 8,250 at PNC Park.

It marked the second consecutive win for the Pirates (4-7), who topped four runs in a nine-inning game for the first time this season and moved within a half-game of the Cardinals (4-6) for third place in the NL Central standings.

“It gives you full confidence to stay loose and stay in control of the game and in your outing,” Mlodzinski said. “When they give you runs, it’s easier to pitch. I think anybody will say that. When you have the confidence that your offense has put up runs, it’s just go and attack the hitters.”

Although Pirates manager Derek Shelton cautioned that it wasn’t designed to be a true piggyback performance by the pitchers, he was delighted with how Mlodzinski and Harrington spared the beat-up bullpen following a weekend against the New York Yankees.

Mlodzinksi (1-1) kept the Cardinals scoreless through the first four innings, improving upon his first true start. In a 6-1 loss at Tampa Bay on March 31, he allowed four runs on five hits in the fourth inning. This time, Mlodzinski didn’t surrender a run until the fifth. He allowed five hits and two walks while striking out six on a career-high 92 pitches.

“I think he obviously has premium stuff,” Bart said. “I think settling in as a starter and learning how to make that transition, he’ll just keep getting better. Right now, I feel like he is settling in a little bit, but he’s not really where he can be, which is fine. He’s got a lot of really good stuff. Just battling one inning versus five to seven innings is a lot different. He knows how to do it and when they made that decision, I was thrilled with it because I think he’s really talented and can be a really good starter.”

Bart crushed Cardinals lefty Matthew Liberatore’s first-pitch fastball 411 feet into the bullpen in center field for his first home run of the season to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead in the first inning.

The Pirates padded their lead in the second inning. Tommy Pham singled to third, Endy Rodriguez doubled to left and both scored on a single to right by Isiah Kiner-Falefa for a 3-0 lead. Ke’Bryan Hayes singled to center to drive in Kiner-Falefa to make it 4-0.

“The biggest hit to open it up was IKF’s,” Shelton said. “I thought that was really important.”

Michael Siani led off the fifth with a single to left, advanced to second on a Willson Contreras walk and scored on Brendan Donovan’s single to center to cut it to 4-1.

Harrington, who gave up six earned runs in a 7-0 loss to the Rays in his MLB debut on April 1, relieved Mlodzinski in the sixth and gave up three runs on four hits – including two solo homers – while striking out five on 60 pitches.

Harrington became the first Pirates pitcher to earn a four-inning save since Jason Christiansen on July 17, 1998 at Montreal. Harrington is the fifth Pirates pitcher to go four innings to earn his first major league save since the statistic became official in 1969, joining Jim Winn (1984), Cecilio Guante (1983), Larry McWilliams (1982) and Nellie Briles (1971).

Harrington gave up a two-out solo home run to Yohel Pozo, who drove a belt-high 2-0 splitter 380 feet into the left field bleachers to cut it to 4-2.

Kiner-Falefa led off the seventh with a single to right. With one out, the Cardinals replaced Liberatore with Chris Roycroft, who walked Hayes and gave up a two-run double to Andrew McCutchen to make it 6-2.

Bart followed by driving a 391-foot shot to center for an RBI triple over center fielder Michael Siani that bounced off the glove of a fan who reached over the fence. The Cardinals challenged the call, and umpires ruled fan interference but said that Bart would have reached third and McCutchen would have scored regardless.

“I feel like that’s happened to me a couple of times in my career where I have no idea,” Bart said. “I asked the guy what that ruling was, and I guess he said that they would’ve deemed it a triple anyway. They didn’t think (Siani) was going to catch it. But, I was like, ‘Here we go. They are probably going to call me out or something.’ I thought I had a homer there. I don’t know what happened. I guess I got to get a little bit stronger.”

It was the third career triple for Bart, who became the first Pirates catcher to hit a home run and a triple in the same game since Francisco Cervelli did so against the Chicago Cubs on April 12, 2018. Bart scored on a sacrifice fly to center by Oneil Cruz for an 8-2 advantage, as the Pirates went 4 for 4 with runners in scoring position.

The Cardinals cut it to 8-3 in the eighth when Donovan scored on Jordan Walker’s groundout to third. Pirates pitching coach Oscar Marin approached Harrington before the ninth.

“It was sick,” Harrington said. “He came up to me in the dugout and was like, ‘You want to finish this thing?’ I was like, ‘Absolutely.’ It was really cool to get the last out. I think it was like the second time I’ve ever done that in a game, so it was cool.”

Masyn Winn hit a solo homer in the ninth to cut the Cardinals’ deficit to four runs, but Harrington responded by striking out Lars Nootbaar and Contreras to end the game.

“It showed, ‘Hey man, you can go after big-league hitters,’” Shelton said. “I think the other thing that shouldn’t go unnoticed is standing on the mound at the end of a Major League Baseball game. There’s something to be said about that. Going out and being able to finish that in the ninth inning, I would bet in his professional career he’s never stood on the mound in the eighth or ninth inning. Even though he didn’t start that, he had to finish it. That’s really important and he stayed composed, which I thought was impressive.”