Rookie Flaherty silences Pirates in 2-1 loss

The Pirates had seen the Cardinals' rookie pitcher, Jack Flaherty, three times earlier this season. They hadn't quite seen Flaherty like this, however.

Flaherty, a right-hander taken in the first round of the 2014 draft, allowed only three hits and struck out seven in six scoreless innings to out-duel Pirates starter Trevor Williams and send the Cardinals on their way to a 2-1 win Sunday afternoon at PNC Park.

The win places the Cardinals (58-54) back in front of the Pirates (57-55) after they took two of three games in the weekend series, and it sends the Pirates on the road after a 4-5 homestand that undid some of the ground gained after the unexpected 11-game win streak.

Flaherty (5-6) managed to keep the Pirates' bats from getting rolling, a stark contrast to his last outing against them, when he gave up four runs, three earned, in five innings on May 31 in a 10-8 win — a game the Cardinals rallied to win with five runs in the ninth. The young righty showed progression from his earlier starts against the Pirates, which Jordy Mercer described after managing one of the only three hits off Flaherty.

"I felt like he was throwing his two-seam more. He showed it in the past, but he didn't throw it quite as much. It hits about 88, 89, 90, and he threw that pitch a bunch," Mercer said. "We all know his fastball plays 95, 96, but it seemed like he didn't throw it as much. He just kept us off balance, really, that was the biggest thing. He pitched to both sides of the plate and did a good job getting out of jams, too."

Perhaps PNC Park sits well with Flaherty, who is now 2-1 against the Pirates with his team winning three of the four games. His other win came after allowing one run on May 26, and in three starts in Pittsburgh this year, he has given up just four runs in 17 innings.

"That's the best game we've seen him pitch," Clint Hurdle said. "The slider played the best we had seen it, and that made everything else tougher to hit. The fastball was tougher to hit, but the slider played extremely well, especially to left-hand hitters."

WILLIAMS TAKES A HARD-LUCK 'L'

The Pirates' righty on the hill certainly held up his end of the bargain after coming into the game without allowing a run in his past three starts, a span of 17 innings.

Williams' final line — two earned runs on nine hits over five innings — was a little unflattering, as he fell victim to multiple slow-rolling balls getting through the infield or caroming off the gloves of diving teammates. His one major mistake of the game, however, came against exactly the wrong person, as reigning NL Player of the Month Matt Carpenter blasted a 1-2 fastball midway up the right-field seats to break open a scoreless game in the top of the fifth.

The Cardinals' other run later that inning was a result of one of those unlucky bounces. Yadier Molina, who singled after the Carpenter homer, was able to go from first to third when Jose Martínez hit a broken-bat single that Colin Moran got a glove to but couldn't corral with a full-extension dive in the dirt to his left. With two outs, Jedd Gyorko hit a first-pitch fastball to left to bring home Molina for the eventual winning run.

"I thought (Williams) pitched another very professional game. The scoreless streak of innings he put together, man, he made pitches, the fastball usage, he used the slider, the changeup. ... He wanted to go up with the 1-2 pitch to Carpenter, and it stayed down," Hurdle said. "He forced soft contact, and some of that soft contact found its way through to the outfield grass, but I thought he pitched a really good ball game."

Coincidentally, Williams has been the starter all four times they have faced Flaherty. That didn't go unnoticed by the Pirates' starter, whose record fell to 9-8 with his second loss to the Cardinals.

"I tried to get him before the series. I saw him running around and tried to get him to say I'm tired of pitching against him. There's five other pitchers on the team I could pitch against," Williams joked, adding, "He's a good ballplayer, and he's throwing really well for them. If I had a vote for Rookie of the Year, I'd vote for him."

FAILURE IN THE FIFTH

The Pirates' best chance to stage a rally came in the bottom of the fifth after falling behind, but a potential quick comeback got snuffed out in one fell swoop.

Hot-hitting Adam Frazier led off the inning with a double to the wall in right-center, and Mercer — who reached base all three times going 1 for 1 with a walk and a hit-by-pitch — moved Frazier to third with a one-out single to left. That brought up Williams' spot in the order, and Hurdle elected to send up Jordan Luplow, a player with just one hit in his previous 15 at-bats.

Luplow's appearance lasted one pitch, as he grounded a first-pitch slider toward Greg Garcia, who started a 6-4-3 double play to get the Cardinals out of the inning.

Hurdle didn't say what went into the decision to use Luplow instead of Josh Harrison or the equally cold-hitting Sean Rodríguez in that situation, but he did say after the game the Pirates' hottest bat on the homestand — that of David Freese — was unavailable because of injury.

"He got a right forearm contusion Friday night that he tried playing through last night, and it got progressively worse as the night went on and showed up today at a point where he was unable to be used today," Hurdle said.

Hurdle went on to say Freese was ready to travel with the team to Colorado for the start of their road trip, though he didn't comment on Freese's status for tomorrow night.

SMOKIN' ADAM FRAZIER

If Freese is to miss any amount of time, Frazier will be needed to keep up the offensive tear he has been on since being recalled July 25.

The second baseman provided the Pirates' only run of the game on a solo home run with one out in the seventh, depositing a 2-1 slider from lefty reliever Chasen Shreve only a few feet away from where Carpenter's shot landed in the right-field seats. It was the first career homer off a lefty for Frazier and his first home run in the majors since May 15 against the Chicago White Sox.

"Those are good firsts at the major-league level, but he's done it before. He's really focused at the plate, pretty much staying within the strike zone," Hurdle said. "He's hit some spin, he's hit some hard, he's hit some soft. He hit that double in the gap last night, too, to drive in two. He's given us an offensive shot in the arm, for sure."

Frazier left the stadium wearing at Steph Curry basketball jersey — part of the team's NBA-attire theme for heading to the airport — and with his hot hitting and a trip to the Bay Area on this trip, it was an appropriate jersey choice. He went 12 for 28 (.429) during the team's nine-game homestand with six RBIs and a four-game hit streak going with him to Denver.

With Harrison still having his workload watched after returning from a hamstring injury, Josh Bell yet to come back from an oblique injury and Corey Dickerson just returning from the disabled list this weekend, Frazier has more starts in his near future.

And even once the Pirates return to full health, Frazier could provide a much-needed bench bat, as illustrated by Sunday's shortcomings in the fifth inning and on the final play of the game, when Bud Norris picked up his 21st save of the season by inducing a popup to second from Rodríguez.

MATT SUNDAY GALLERY