ST. LOUIS — Clint Hurdle always calls baseball, alternately, a funny or a wonderful game. This episode probably qualifies as both.
Jeff Locke began the season as the Pirates’ No. 5 starter, and now is riding a scoreless streak of 13 innings after going the first seven on Sunday as the Bucs downed the Cardinals, 9-0, to vault over St. Louis in the National League Central.
It can be reasonably assumed that Locke has earned a promotion to the No. 4 slot, previously occupied by Jonathan Sanchez.
Following up on his six shutout innings in Tuesday’s 2-0 win in Philadelphia, the new Locke remained on display in Busch Stadium, where he limited the Redbirds to three hits, while walking two and fanning four.
A trio of homers supported Locke as the Bucs improved to 15-10, matching their most wins in the season’s opening month since the 1992 club went 15-5 on the way to the organization’s last finish on the happy side of .500 and into the playoffs.
Streaking Russell Martin got the Bucs on the board with a solo homer in the second. Martin has been on fire since starting the season hitless in his first 17 at-bats, then 2-for-32; since his average reposed at .062 on April 15, Martin has batted .419 (18-for-43).
Jose Tabata doubled the lead to 2-0 with his own solo homer in the fifth, his first long ball since last June 25.
Then John McDonald made another unlikely contribution in the sixth, dropping a double into left off reliever Fernando Salas to score Brandon Inge, whose single had KO’d starter Shelby Miller.
The two early home runs came off Miller, the rookie right-hander who had allowed only one home run in his first 26 innings. Otherwise, Miller stood up to the Bucs for the second time in 11 days: He’d held them to two runs in a six-inning start on April 17 in PNC Park, an effort eclipsed by A.J. Burnett’s bid for a no-hitter until two outs in the seventh.
Garrett Jones added a third homer, off Salas in the seventh, but only after video review overturned the original call that his drive to right bounced off the top of the wall and was in play. Jones legged that out for a triple — but was quickly credited with the extra 90 feet for his second homer of the year.
Locke got some early defensive support from McDonald, who got the start at shortstop and made sparkling back-to-back plays in the third inning. First, he drifted into short left-center for a twisting, over-the-shoulder catch of Matt Carpenter’s popup. Next, he speared Carlos Beltran’s up-the-middle smash and spun around for a precise throw to first.
Martin added his second homer of the game and fifth of the season as part of a five-run ninth to put the game away.
Photo Credits: Jeff Roberson
