After enduring a rain delay of one hour, 42 minutes, Bailey Falter deserved better than a no-decision Saturday night at PNC Park.

The Pirates fell to the Padres, 2-1, for a seventh loss in their past nine games. That's no surprise. But Falter gave his team every chance to win this one, pitching seven innings with one run allowed on one mistake on this slider over the middle to Manny Machado:

That swing tied the score at 1-1 in the seventh inning. Prior to that, Falter had retired 11 straight. He gave up one other hit, a single to Martin Maldonado in the third that was immediately erased by getting Fernando Tatis Jr. to ground into an inning-ending double play.

"He did a really good job of executing pitches throughout the entire game," Derek Shelton said of Falter. "Essentially, he made one bad pitch. It looked like it was a cutter or slider to Manny. But other than that, I thought he was pretty much in total control."

That slider worked well off his fastball, which was the main reason why he worked so efficiently, needing only 89 pitches to mow through a potent lineup in those seven innings. He pounded guys inside with the fastball, moved it back and forth, then threw the occasional slider to keep guys off balance or put them away:

Falter threw his fastball 53 times, attacking hitters all night long. According to Baseball Savant, he threw it 1.2-mph harder than his season average, and his spin rate was 66 rpms more than his season average.

"I noticed in the bullpen that we had a really good fastball today, so I tried to use it as much as possible," Falter said. "Then, just being able to establish the heater down opened up a lot of room for all the other stuff. I just overall think it was a really good day. Kudos to Joey Bart for calling a really great game. We were on the same page the entire time."

For his own sake, Falter needed a start like this. Maybe it's just the friendly confines of PNC Park. Machado's home run was the first run he'd given up in this ballpark since April 5 and the third inning of the 10-4 loss to the Yankees. More important, this was fresh off back-to-back starts in which he gave up eight total earned runs over 8 1/3 innings on the West Coast.

"My last couple starts, the starting staff has been picking me up. I feel kind of like the weak link right now," Falter said. "It was good. Just happy to go out there and try and get these guys a W and do whatever it takes. Thought it was a pretty good day overall."

There's no weaker link than the offense, of course. If it weren't for Oneil Cruz, the Pirates would have been completely shut down in this game, mustering all of six singles. This team needs the pitching to be what it was advertised to be prior to the season. 

Falter delivered tonight.

"It's challenging because you're delayed, and then you go out and pitch as well as he did. I mean, that's all he can do. Control what he can control," Shelton said. "To go through eight right-handed hitters, especially the caliber of that group at the top and arguably one of the best left-handed hitters in baseball, and he gave up two hits. He was outstanding."