Crippled by the Cardinals..

The Pittsburgh Pirates returned home from an exhausting road trip and promptly laid an egg against the St.Louis Cardinals and Lance Lynn in a 4-1 loss.

Only an inside the park homer by Alex Presley (1) in the first Pittsburgh at bat of the game allowed the Pirates to avoid the shutout.
Charlie Morton allowed two runs in five innings to pick up the loss (0-1).
The Pirates will be back against the Cardinals tomorrow night without coverage here due to Game five of the Devils-Panthers series.

Pirate Hooks

1) Charlie Morton did not pitch badly over five innings,but threw 93 pitches and apparently hit his limit and was finished for the night.
Morton walked three Cardinals and seemed to battling his command through the entire start....

2) Jared Hughes knew that he had missed his pitch to Daniel Descalso,who smashed it over the fence by the reaction as soon as it was hit.
The pitch was a grapefruit for the hitter,but Hughes was being asked to throw a third inning after throwing almost three in Arizona,you could make an argument that was excessive use by Clint Hurdle...

3) The underrated part of the Cardinal ninth was not the Descalso homer,but the error by Neil Walker that would eventually add another run to the scoreboard.

4) Just four hits on the night for the Pirates against the three Cardinal pitchers and none of them for extra bases other than the Alex Presley homer.
The offensive struggles are going to be more often than not with this years Buccos...

5) The Presley homer came mainly due to Skip Schumaker's crash into the wall on the attempted catch and resulted in Schumaker leaving the game due to injury.
Tough break for the Cardinals,but it was the only break that Pittsburgh would get on this night.

6) Four of the eight Pirates starters are hitting less than .150 thus far.
Jose Tabata at .150,Clint Barmes .103 and the team of Rod Barajas and Pedro Alvarez at a sizzling .067 apiece.
Yuck.

Photo Credit:AP Photo