ST. LOUIS _ Back at Busch Stadium after stretching their roster to survive in Chicago, the schedule greeted the Cardinals with a welcome run of games to nourish their record with some home-cooking.
If it wasn't one of the American League's losing teams coming for a visit in the Kansas City Royals, it was arguably the worst team in baseball popping by for a doubleheader.
The Cardinals were left lacking.
The Pittsburgh Pirates, who arrived 7-19 without an extra-inning win yet this season, completed a sweep of a doubleheader Thursday at Busch Stadium with a shutout of the Cardinals in Game 2. Cody Ponce pitched six scoreless innings to send the Pirates to a 2-0 win in the evening game and claim his first big-league win.
The Cardinals committed three errors in the field in their 4-3 loss in Game 1, and didn't have much spark offensively in Game 2.
They had a runner in scoring position in three of the six innings against Ponce and made little of it. Double plays ended potential rallies in the first two innings. Trailing by two runs in the sixth inning, Brad Miller hit a two-out triple for the Cardinals' final baserunner of the evening game. He didn't get any farther as the inning came to an end on a popup.
Dylan Carlson led off the fifth with a double and didn't move as two popups that didn't leave the infield and a strikeout ended that inning.
Rookie Johan Oviedo pitched well through five innings. He allowed two runs on four hits and two walks. The Pirates scored both runs in the game during the third inning. A walk from Oviedo was the push, followed by three singles to produce the only runs the Bucs needed.
The doubleheader with two seven-inning games was the first way the Cardinals and Pirates made up a series lost to the COVID-19 outbreak in the Cardinals clubhouse earlier this month.
The third of the postponed games will be in Pittsburgh in September.
The Cardinals welcome Cleveland for a three game series this weekend that concludes and 11-day, 12-game home stand. The Cardinals have lost three of their past four games to slip to 5-4 in the first nine games of the home stand.
