The Pirates lost two out of three in a key weekend series against rival St. Louis. Trevor Williams gave up two runs in the 5th inning, breaking his scoreless innings streak at 21, and the Cardinals’ Jack Flaherty shut out the Bucs on three hits over six innings as St. Louis beat the Pirates 2-1. The only Pirates run was in the seventh on a solo homer by Adam Frazier Pittsburgh has now dropped four of their last six games.
The Pirates start a nine-game road trip tonight at Colorado. They’ll play three there, then four in San Francisco over the weekend, and after an off-day on Monday, conclude the road trip with two games at Minnesota. Left-hander Kyle Freeland goes for the Rockies tonight. He’s 9-7 with a 3.20 ERA. The Bucs start Joe Musgrove, who is 4-5 with a 3.63 ERA and coming off a 1-0 loss to the Mets eight days ago. The Pirates are in fourth place in the NL Central, 7 1/2 games behind the Chicago Cubs and in fifth place in the second wild-card chase, five games back.
Airtime tonight is 8:15 on WCCS, AM 1160 and 101.1 FM.
Pitcher Alex McRae was optioned to Indianapolis yesterday and Casey Sadler was called up. Hot-hitting David Freese was unavailable yesterday because of a forearm contusion suffered on Friday.
