Musgrove shines in season debut as Pirates top Cards

[May 26, 2018]  Joe Musgrove, making his Pittsburgh Pirates and 2018 debut, pitched seven shutout innings and Francisco Cervelli hit a three-run double Friday in an 8-1 win over the visiting St. Louis Cardinals.

Josh Harrison was 2-for-5 with two RBIs for Pittsburgh, which had lost five of its previous six games.

St. Louis fell to 4-8 in its past 12.

Musgrove (1-0) had been on the disabled list because of a right shoulder strain dating to spring training. He was part of a trade that sent Gerrit Cole to Houston in the offseason. In his seven innings, Musgrove scattered five hits and needed just 67 pitches, 50 of them strikes.

For five-plus innings, it was a starters' duel between 25-year-olds that each struck out seven and walked none.

St. Louis' John Gant, looking for his first win since April 26, gave up three runs and four hits in 5 1/3 innings.

Gant (1-2) sailed through five innings, giving up just two leadoff singles, before Pittsburgh chased him in the sixth.

Musgrove opened with his first major league hit, a single to right. Harrison followed with a double to the gap in right-center, and Musgrove slid into home for a 1-0 lead. Harrison moved to third on Gregory Polanco's groundout. Gant then hit Cervelli in the left shoulder, ending his night on the mound.

Against Brett Cecil, Josh Bell brought home Harrison with a sacrifice fly, and Corey Dickerson tripled to right, scoring Bell to make it 3-0.

Cardinals center fielder Tommy Pham (28) circles the bases on a solo home run against the Pittsburgh Pirates during the eighth inning at PNC Park. Pittsburgh won 8-1. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

In the seventh, Austin Meadows started with a single and stole second. Jordy Mercer got an infield hit, moving Meadows to third. Two outs later, Polanco walked to load the bases, and Cervelli followed with a bases-clearing double off the wall in right to increase the lead to 6-0.

St. Louis' Tommy Pham crushed a two-out homer to right-center, his ninth, in the eighth to spoil the shutout, 6-1.

In the Pittsburgh eighth, Meadows and Mercer hit back-to-back one-out triples for a 7-1 lead, and Harrison drove in Mercer with a single.

--Field Level Media

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