Tonight, the Pittsburgh Pirates were throwing it back to honor the Homestead Grays of the Negro League. Dressed in those classic uniforms, they would battle the St. Louis Cardinals in game two of this four game series. St. Louis used a three run fifth inning to grab the lead and plated one more run in the seventh to hold on to a 4-3 victory.
Dillion Peters was cruising through the first four innings, but ran into trouble during the fifth. That is when Harrison Bader drove in the first run of the night on a double to right center. They would add two more runs when Tommy Edman homered to left. Peters would exit after the inning, allowing three runs on six hits with four strikeouts.
Homestead would get on the board in the bottom half of the inning on a Yoshi Tsutsugo RBI triple to center. They got to within one run an inning later on a bases loaded walk to Kevin Newman. Both runs were charged to Cardinals starter J.A. Happ. Happ went 5.2 innings and during that time gave up two runs on three hits with four strikeouts and three walks.
Duane Underwood Jr. was on the mound for the Grays in the sixth and seventh innings. He allowed one run on two hits with two strikeouts. That run would end up being the game winner, when Edman hit a sac fly to center. Homestead made one more comeback attempt in the eighth when Colin Moran hit an RBI single to left off of St. Louis relief pitcher Giovanny Gallegos.
The Grays had some opportunities that they could not capitalize on throughout the game. One came in the sixth when they could only get one run across with the bases loaded. Later in the game Moran would be thrown out at home when he probably should have been held up, since he doesn’t have much speed.
It was a shame that Pittsburgh could not honor those classic Homestead uniforms with a win, but it is always good to see them represent one of the two Negro League teams from the city’s past. Tomorrow night will be another opportunity to get the best of the Cardinals. First pitch for Saturday is 7:05pm. The Pirates will send Steven Brault to the mound, while St. Louis will counter with Adam Wainwright.
Record vs. Cardinals: 6-11
Record vs. N.L. Central: 16-42
Record at Home: 27-37
Overall Record: 47-82
And…
As Always…
Let’s Go Bucs!
