It was a wild first game in St. Louis for the Pirates, losing 3-1 to St. Louis.
It featured a balk not called, a wild 6-4-2-5-4-2 play to end bottom of the fourth for the Cardinals after scoring on a fielder's choice, and short stop Diego Castillo committing three errors at shortstop.
Castillo committed the errors on back-to-back plays in the bottom of the fourth, further fueling calls for Oneil Cruz to be called up from Triple-A Indianapolis.
Daniel Vogelbach committed a fourth Pirates error in the bottom of the 8th.
Later in the inning, Yadier Molina was on second when he was caught off the bag. Starting pitcher JT Brubaker did commit a balk but it was not called until Molina complained about it.
The umps gathered to talk about it and reserved the call to a balk. Pirates manager Derek Shelton come onto the field to plead his case but was not thrown out of the game.
A balk call is not permitted to be argued but the umpire crew let Shelton give his thoughts.
That play then led to a Cardinals third run.
Paul Goldschmidt reached base on a fielder's choice with Castillo throwing to second baseman Yu Chang for a force out, but runner Nolan Gorman was called safe and kept running to third that allowed Molina to score.
Confused, Chang started running toward Gorman, throwing to home. That forced Edmundo Sosa in a rundown, he got back to third and another rundown occurred with Gorman back to second.
The chaos finally ended with Sosa being thrown out at home.
The Cardinals got their first two runs from a Paul Goldschmidt homer to center field in the bottom of the third.
The Pirates only run came on a Chang home run in the top of the 7th. It was Chang's first of the year.
A positive note for the Pirates, Canaan Smith-Njigba's first Major League at bat in the big leagues was a double in the bottom of the 9th.
