What’s more American than a baseball game?
On Independence Day in the United States, the Pittsburgh Pirates hosted the St. Louis Cardinals at PNC Park for a rubber match.
After Oneil Cruz was the hero last night, winning it in walk-off fashion for the Pirates, Pittsburgh was desperately seeking a series win against not only a divisional rival, but a team ahead of them in the National League’s wild card standings.
That bid ended in defeat, however, as the Cardinals took the third and final game in extra innings, off a two-run tenth inning that the Pirates just couldn’t find a way to replicate.
This 3-2 loss was not the fault of Pirates starter Martín Pérez, who had a very encouraging performance on the mound today after a rough start back to the major leagues.
After missing around a month with a groin injury, Pérez first came back in the form of a rehab start with Pittsburgh’s Triple-A affiliate in Indianapolis. After one game there, he returned to the Pirates on June 28th for the team’s series opener in Atlanta.
He got lit up for 8 hit and 6 earned runs, with a particularly bad third inning. He only made it through 4.0 innings and was dinged with the loss, his fourth of the season. Unfortunately, he looked far from truly ready in that came.
Not the case today at all.
Pérez lasted 7.1 innings, throwing 59 strikes on 92 pitches and limiting his Cardinal opponents to 6 hits and only 1 run. That run wasn’t charged to Pérez, but he was assessed an error on a play in the second inning.
He struck out 2 and walked 1, with that only walk of the game came on his very first batter, after he let an 0-2 count slip away and result in a leadoff walk to St. Louis’ Masyn Winn.
The only run to score off of Pérez was in the second inning, when Brendan Donovan scored from first off a Dylan Carlson double.
This was his only real slip up of the game, and unfortunately with the way the Pirate offense has played at times this year, it proved to be a thorn in the side of the team.
However, Pérez did the best he could to give the Pirates every possible chance. He encountered a few jams with runners on base, but a few double plays from his infielders and a big time strikeout of Paul Goldschmidt to shut down the St. Louis attack.
Simply put, the native of Venezuela was fantastic. After suffering a rocky start resuming his season, he put together what is probably his best start of the season.
Only once has Pérez gone longer than 7.1 innings in a game for the Pirates, coming back on April 9th when he went 8.0 innings and allowed just 1 earned run.
Ironically, that was the infamous game in which David Bednar was booed after blowing the game and Rowdy Tellez came to his defense. A LOT has happened for both Bednar and Tellez since then.
Pérez has only had no runs charged to him one other time this season as well, coming on April 27th when he went 6.0 innings and had one unearned run scored while he was on the mound.
If Pérez can find a way to follow this up in the near future, that will massively help a Pirates team that has lost Jared Jones for the time being. Pérez, Luis Ortiz, and Marco Gonzales, who is rehabbing in Triple-A with Indianapolis right now, will be counted on to help stabilize the back end of the rotation as the Pirates try their best to stay relevant.
Pérez’s ERA on the season falls to 4.72.
Fifth Avenue Sports 
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