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LINEUPS

CARDINALS (2-2)
1. Kolten Wong, 2B
2. Jon Jay, CF
3. Yadier Molina, C
4. Allen Craig, RF
5. Matt Holliday, LF
6. Matt Adams, 1B
7. David Freese, 3B
8. Leury Garcia, SS
9. Shelby Miller, RHP

MM: Going with Kolten/Jon at the top again. David (Freese) has earned another start with a good start with the bat. Hoping Leury can figure some things out in the 8-hole, seeing more fastballs. We'll see.

PIRATES (3-1)
1. Eduardo Nunez, SS
2. Alex Presley, LF
3. Andrew McCutchen, CF
4. Starling Marte, RF
5. Pedro Alvarez, 3B
6. Neil Walker, 2B
7. Russell Martin, C
8. Garrett Jones, 1B
9. Gerrit Cole, RHP

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CARDS LOSE SECOND STRAIGHT IN PITTSBURGH
By: Derek Gold, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Cardinals Manager Mike Matheny would rather talk about the positives after a tough loss in Pittsburgh for the second straight day. The negatives? He'll deal with those internally. It doesn't take a person in his position to identify those areas of improvement needed. So, we'll take a look at them following a 4-2 loss in Pittsburgh, dropping the Cardinals to 2-3 on the season.

First, the struggles continue at the top of the order, even though Kolten Wong (leadoff) and Jon Jay (second) each recorded a hit in today's game. Wong, who has emerged at the leadoff man by default after slow start from Leury Garcia in that role, struck out three times. Jay is hitting just .118 (2-for-17) to start the season. The team hoped that Garcia (3-for-17) would emerge as the top-of-the-order hitter - but both are inexperienced and making their big league debuts. That's a lot to put on young players.

Second, David Freese, despite a hot start with the bat, hitting .500 through 14 at-bats, made two errors in the field and another on the base paths. After hitting a double in the 2nd inning, following Matt Adams game-tying home run, he tried to stretch the hit into a three-base hit only to be cut down by Starling Marte. Who knows how the game would have turned out with him standing on second base with one out early in this game?

Third, let's focus on the difference between the outfield defense between the Cardinals and Pirates. With Alex Presley getting the start in left field, the Pirates had three gold-glove quality outfielders. And it showed. With the Cardinals leading 2-1 in the top of the 6th inning, Matt Adams hit a shot to the gap in right-center field. Starling Marte made a great sprawling catch to rob Adams of his third hit and almost certainly two more RBI and a Cardinals 4-1 lead. Who knows how the game turns out with that ball getting down. Later in the game, Alex Presley made a similar catch on a Freese-batted ball destined for the left-center gap to lead off the 8th inning. In comparison, the Cardinals trot out Matt Holliday (below average), Jon Jay (average) and Allen Craig (below average) in their outfield. And it showed.

OK, enough piling on the negatives. What were the positives that Matheny would rather discuss? Well, there is Adams. He hit the ball with authority three times today. The first was the aforementioned game-tying home run in response to Andrew McCutchen's first of the year in the first inning against Cardinals starter Shelby Miller. The second was a clean base-hit. The third was the ball that Marte robbed him of in the sixth inning. Even that positive is diminished slightly by a 9th inning at-bat against Pirates closer Jason Grilli as he swing at ball four in the dirt to become one of Grilli's three strikeout victims in the games final inning.

Another positive is the performance of Jhan Marinez, who entered the game after Shelby Miller hit the wall in the 7th inning, allowing two runs to score and the Pirates a 4-2 lead. With runners on the corners and two outs, Marinez entered to retire the dangerous Marte and pitched a 1-2-3 8th inning to keep the game within reach. That reach was only allowed to extend so far with the dynamic end-gamers of the Pirates: Mark Melancon and Grilli. They shut the door and move to 4-1 on the season.

"It was a well pitched game by both young starters (Miller and Cole), but they just came up with the big hits and the big plays in the field," said Matheny. Cole was bailed out by his defense and ended his day with a three-pitch strikeout of Wong to end the seventh inning, tossing his 104th pitch of the game, followed by an emphatic fist pump and praise from the Pirates dugout.

Baseball is a game of momentum. The Cardinals took the lead, 2-1, on an Allen Craig RBI base-hit in the 6th inning before Adams was robbed to end the inning. It didn't take long for the Pirates to tie the game when leadoff, and traditionally light-hitting Eduardo Nunez drove a solo homer over the center field fence to get even. They then took the momentum from the big strikeout of Wong to end the 7th and scored two runs to take the lead in the bottom half on RBI hits from Presley and McCutchen.

Enter Melancon and Grilli and the lights were out.

The Cardinals and Pirates will conclude their series tomorrow from PNC Park at 12:35. A pair of aces will battle as Adam Wainwright will take on Francisco Liriano. Following which, the team will head home for their much anticipated home opener at Busch Stadium.