When trying to find the word to judge a recent start and a troubling trend that he felt coming out of it, Cardinals starter Sonny Gray turned to a four-letter noun.
Perhaps, for Wednesday’s follow-up, a three-syllable description will suffice.
Dominant.
The right-hander signed in the offseason to lead the Cardinals rotation had the kind of start that did just that. In the wake of his own disappointing stretch this past week and the Cardinals’ ninth-inning loss Tuesday night, Gray shifted gears in the first inning and raced toward a 4-2 victory against Pittsburgh at Busch Stadium. To get out of trouble in the first, Gray struck out three consecutive batters on 10 pitches and did not stop from there.
Gray pitched seven superb innings, held the Bucs to one run and struck out at least nine for the fifth time in 12 starts for the Cardinals.
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The right-hander had seen a creeping regression of his starts over the past month. Each of his previous four starts had been shorter or as short as the previous one, and that culminated at the start of this home stand with a 42/3-inning dud against Colorado. After that game, a loss, Gray said he pitched “like (expletive).â€
Clearly between starts he scraped it from his cleats.
Gray (8-4) went one stretch Wednesday where he retired a dozen consecutive Pirates batters — and his swift pace led to a two-hour, 12-minute sprint to the ninth for the Cardinals.
Nolan Arenado and Ivan Herrera each had three hits, and Brendan Donovan added three times on base and an RBI. Seven of the Cardinals’ 11 hits in the game came from the bottom four batters in the order.
The bullpen invited the Bucs to tease some drama but not much as Andrew Kittredge pitched around a solo homer to complete his eighth inning with two strikeouts. Ryan Helsley pitched a scoreless ninth to secure his league-leading 22nd save. Pittsburgh had the tying run at the plate and a runner in scoring position when the game ended, leaving the Pirates 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position and 1 for 15 in the series with runners in scoring position.
Gray stacks up strikes
Rolling out of the first inning and three consecutive strikeouts, Gray breezed into the middle innings by retiring 12 consecutive batters between the doubles he allowed.
He struck out five of them, mostly on sweeping sliders.
That pitch got all three strikeouts in the first inning, and in the third inning, a sweeper got former MVP Andrew McCutchen to flinch for a swing.
As he shut out the Pirates through five innings, Gray did so by filling the strike zone — or getting swings with the off-speed pitches that faded slightly to the edges of the strike zone. Gray got 12 swings and misses total through his seven innings, and most came clustered early as he finished his start with three meek balls in play. Of his first 57 pitches, 40 were strikes. He landed six different pitches. Five of them he threw at least 10 times.
He had two pitches — his curve and his change-up — that the Pirates didn’t put in play in any of the 14 times they saw them.
Gray got swings and misses on three different pitches.
Seven came on the sweeper.
In the fifth, a double led to the lone run against him. A stolen base and a error threatened to add at least another, when ended the inning on his own. He got a strikeout on his sweeper and then — facing McCutchen again — snapped a cut fastball for the strikeout. All nine of Gray’s strikeouts were swinging.
He has 91 strikeouts for the season, and he ranks in the National League’s top 10 for wins (eight), ERA (3.01) and strikeouts.
Arenado in swing of it
After watching his teammate make two exceptional plays at third and add two hits off Paul Skenes, starter Miles Mikolas said it seems sometimes like Arenado plays with a “little extra chip on his shoulder.â€
By that measure, it was still there Wednesday.
In his first three at-bats, Arenado singled, doubled and singled. He was in the midst of two Cardinals rallies as they pulled away as Gray settled in. Arenado lined a ball to left field in the third, and Bucs outfielder Bryan Reynolds attempted to make a diving catch. The ball landed well in front of him — and was quickly behind him. Paul Goldschmidt scored from first for Arenado’s 31st RBI of the season.
Two innings alter, Arenado singled to put another rally in motion. With two outs, his teammates Herrera and Donovan followed with singles to drive home Arenado and lift the Cardinals to a 4-1 lead.
The multi-hit game was Arenado’s third in a row, raising his average from .248 to .268 at one point in the span of 15 at-bats.
For good measure, he added a backhand play and running throw from foul territory for an out in the eighth inning — and he just kept running to the dugout after making it.
“Listen, I think it’s coming,†Arenado said late Tuesday night. “I feel like I’ve been saying that for a while, though, you know. I’m not going to keep saying it anymore. I’m just going to go out and compete and try to help this team win ballgames the best I can, and we’ll see where I am in the end.â€
Gray’s escape gives hint
The first inning began with the hiccups left over from his previous start.
Gray walked leadoff batter McCutchen to start the game, and Reynolds followed with a double into right field. Eight pitches into his start and Gray had thrown six balls, and one of the two strikes he threw never got to the catcher’s mitt, landing somewhere out there in right field as both Pirates hitters reached scoring position.
What happened next gave a glimpse of what Gray had going from there.
On his next six pitches, he struck out two.
Gray got within a pitch of striking out three batters on nine consecutive pitches with their teammates watching on base. He missed on an 0-2 pitch to No. 5 hitter Ke’Bryan Hayes. Or rather, Hayes didn’t bite on the 0-2 pitch like the previous two Pirates. So Gray went back to his sweeper, and Hayes struck out on a foul tip to end the inning. In the span of 10 pitches and three strikeouts, the only time Gray threw the same pitch back to back was the sweeper to Hayes.