Sonny Gray looking to bounce back against Pirates

Coming off his first loss and worst outing of the season, veteran right-hander Sonny Gray will try to keep the St. Louis Cardinals’ recent roll going when they host the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday afternoon.

The Cardinals are aiming for a three-game sweep and looking to extend their season-high winning streak to five games. Gray (3-1, 4.12 ERA) will oppose right-hander Mitch Keller (1-3, 4.38), who will try to snap the Pirates’ season-high six-game losing streak.

Gray gave up six runs in his most recent start, last Friday against the New York Mets. That included four earned runs on a season-high nine hits allowed and three walks. Gray struck out six, but his start ended after a season-low 4 1/3 innings once he surrendered a two-run home run to Pete Alonso.

“I think I was probably trying to be too cute there in that one,” Gray said. “But I called something that is not normally what I would do, maybe trying to overthink it, or do something, and it wasn’t right.”

Gray’s 29 strikeouts and only four walks over his first five starts this season ranked among the best in baseball at the time. But his effectiveness has waned a bit in his two most recent outings; he has walked six while striking out 10.

“You try to limit damage, not give any free passes,” Gray said. “I don’t think I did either one of those.”

Gray is 6-4 with a 4.02 ERA in 12 career starts and 13 overall appearances against the Pirates.

Keller struggled a bit in his most recent outing as well, tossing five innings and allowing five runs (four earned) on eight hits, including a home run. Keller issued one walk and struck out three in a 9-4 loss to the San Diego Padres on Friday.

“Besides the home run, I gave up a bunch of broken-bat singles, weak contact, a double down the line,” Keller said. “I’m not too upset about it. I’m upset we lost, but not too displeased about where I was throwing the ball.”

Keller is 2-3 with a 3.38 ERA in 14 career starts against the Cardinals and 2-2 with a 3.62 ERA in seven of those starts at Busch Stadium. He has been solid at times this season, but not always dominant.

And that’s something the Pirates are forcing their starting rotation to be due to their lack of offense.

Pittsburgh enters Wednesday’s game having scored the second-fewest runs in the majors (118), behind only Colorado’s 106. On Tuesday, the Pirates failed to give ace Paul Skenes more than a run of support in a 2-1 loss.

Ke’Bryan Hayes, who recorded his 500th career hit on Tuesday and drove in that lone run with a double in the sixth inning, said the team has to find a way to produce more runs.

“Not only just for (Keller), just for everybody. The pitchers — the starters and the bullpen — they’ve been doing a really good job and we’ve just gotta pick them up and score runs,” Hayes said after Tuesday’s loss. “However that may be, whether it be drawing walks, getting that big hit, we’ve just gotta find a way. They’ve been doing a really good job of picking us up, so we’ve just gotta figure out how to pick them up.”

–Field Level Media