Making just his third appearance of the season and second start, Pirates pitcher Wil Crowe calmed down and gave the Bucs a promising outing Sunday as Pittsburgh lost to the St. Louis Cardinals 3-0.
Crowe worked five innings, allowing three earned runs on three hits. He struck out two and walked four. The only runs scored against the 26-year-old came on a three-run home run by St. Louis center fielder Harrison Bader in the second inning.
"The execution of his off-speed stuff was very sporadic, but he was able to bounce back and keep down a pretty good lineup," Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. "One swing of the bat was the whole game in this situation.
"Throughout the entire game, the command of his off-speed stuff was not very good and he actually pitched with one pitch, which is fairly impressive."
Crowe did, however, walk two leadoff hitters and hit another to begin an inning.
"The walks weren't great," Crowe said. "I was definitely trying to feel for some different things. The fastball was the best it's been in a while. I felt really good with the fastball. But you flip it to the other side and the off-speed was the worst it's been in probably a couple of years."
He came back from the rocky, 41-pitch second inning to allow just one hit in his final three innings. He also reached base twice while at the plate, including a single in his first career place appearance and walk in the fifth inning, when Shelton elected to let him bat in lieu on a pinch-hitter.
Shelton described Crowe as the club's best hitting pitcher.
"I hit a little bit my freshman year of college and I hit a little bit in high school," said Crowe, who played collegiately at South Carolina. "I take it seriously. It's an advantage that we can get… I bust my butt hitting as much as I do pitching."
Crowe, who tossed 97 pitches with 60 for strikes, had some inconsistency, no doubt. But he has allowed only four runs in nine innings of games in which he has started and has given the Pirates another option on the hill.
"Today was a big area of growth," Shelton said. "A definite sign of growth to keep us in that game."
Pen Dominates
Once Crowe left the game, the combination of Luis Oviedo, Kylee Crick and Richard Rodriguez combined to shut down the St. Louis lineup and give Pittsburgh a chance to win.
Oviedo managed to escape the sixth inning unscathed after a double and error put a runner at third base with one out.
"He did a nice job," Shelton said. "He was extremely efficient to get through their lineup for two innings. It was a big boost for us."
Crick and Rodriguez went 1-2-3 in their frames to finish off that side of the game for the Pirates.
Stallings Hit in Face
A scary situation unfolded in the fourth inning when Pirates catcher Jacob Stallings was hit in the face by a 97 mile per hour fastball from Cardinals starter Carlos Martinez. After a lengthy evaluation, Stallings was — almost amazingly — able to stay in the game.
"He's doing alright," Shelton said postgame. "We checked him every inning and we were aware. Everything seems to be fine. There was no hesitancy among our medical group with where he's at."
"(I'm) just really lucky," Stallings said. "Face is a little sore and a little swolen, but other than that, I'm good.
"It's scary. First time it's every happened to me. I knew it hurt, but the shock of it is the initial scare… Once everything slowed down I knew that I was okay."
How's Hayes?
Pirates rookie third baseman Ke'Bryan Hayes remains out with a wrist injury suffered in the season's opening week. After a setback a couple of weeks ago, it appears that Hayes is progressing and may be nearing a return.
"Through our doctors, we have a strong degree of confidence in the diagnosis in that he has an injury, that injury is healing and that he'll get past that injury with conservative care and continuing too take time," said Pirates general manager Ben Cherington on his Sunday radio interview.
Hayes hit some soft-toss Saturday and will go on the Pirates' upcoming road trip, Cherington confirmed.
"We'll take it a day at a time and continue to listen to him," Cherington said. "He's obviously really important… As much as we want him out there, no one wants him to be out there more than he does."
And the Pirates could use his bat back in the lineup. Todd Frazier started at third base Sunday and went 0-for-3, dropping his batting average to .048 this season.
AAA Opens Tuesday
Thee Pirates' AAA affiliate Indianapolis Indians will begin their season Tuesday in Iowa.
Cherington confirmed that Chase De Jong will likely start Tuesday's game and that the Indians will operate with a six-man pitching rotation, something that will be the case throughout the organization's minor league system, as the minor league schedule its set with six games and a standard off-day each week.
"We're going to ned a lot of pitching help this year and we want to be mindful of innings and work volume and we want as many guys contributing as possible," Cherington said. "We expect that a lot of those guys that start the year in Indy will find an opportunity up here at some point."
Cody Ponce, Miguel Yajure, Steven Wright, James Marvel and Beau Sulser will begin the season in the AAA rotation.
