As he stood in front of his locker postgame, Carmen Mlodzinski adequately summarized the collective pitching in the Pirates' 7-0 win over the Cardinals here tonight at Busch Stadium.
"It wasn't like a perfect day for us, pitching-wise," Mlodzinski said. "But if you have a shutout, you did good enough, for sure."
Mlodzinski had to battle through five innings, throwing 95 pitches and allowing four hits while walking one and striking out one en route to lowering his ERA to 3.96. It's possible that he could have gone deeper, but that pitch count continued to swell due in large part to the 20 foul balls hit by St. Louis batters.
Mlodzinski might have bent at times, but he didn't break. And the bullpen followed suit. Yohan Ramirez, Evan Sisk, Justin Lawrence and DennisSantana managed to deliver four scoreless innings to back Mlodzinski's performance.
Ramirez escaped a bases-loaded jam in the sixth before EvanSisk enjoyed a 1-2-3 seventh. Lawrence hit a batter with one out in the eighth, but he struck out ThomasSaggese and NolanGorman. Then, Santana did his thing with a comfortable lead in the ninth, registering three straight outs, including a strikeout of NathanChurch.
"It's just going out there and doing our jobs," Lawrence said. "It's been a tough stretch kind of as a collective, but we believe in each other and that's the most important thing. And to go out there, and finish what Carm did, he went out there and busted his butt for those five innings, and we were able to finish it off for him."
THE ASYLUM
Pitchers bend but don't break
As he stood in front of his locker postgame, Carmen Mlodzinski adequately summarized the collective pitching in the Pirates' 7-0 win over the Cardinals here tonight at Busch Stadium.
"It wasn't like a perfect day for us, pitching-wise," Mlodzinski said. "But if you have a shutout, you did good enough, for sure."
Mlodzinski had to battle through five innings, throwing 95 pitches and allowing four hits while walking one and striking out one en route to lowering his ERA to 3.96. It's possible that he could have gone deeper, but that pitch count continued to swell due in large part to the 20 foul balls hit by St. Louis batters.
Mlodzinski might have bent at times, but he didn't break. And the bullpen followed suit. Yohan Ramirez, Evan Sisk, Justin Lawrence and Dennis Santana managed to deliver four scoreless innings to back Mlodzinski's performance.
Ramirez escaped a bases-loaded jam in the sixth before Evan Sisk enjoyed a 1-2-3 seventh. Lawrence hit a batter with one out in the eighth, but he struck out Thomas Saggese and Nolan Gorman. Then, Santana did his thing with a comfortable lead in the ninth, registering three straight outs, including a strikeout of Nathan Church.
"It's just going out there and doing our jobs," Lawrence said. "It's been a tough stretch kind of as a collective, but we believe in each other and that's the most important thing. And to go out there, and finish what Carm did, he went out there and busted his butt for those five innings, and we were able to finish it off for him."
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