Bubba Chandler earned his first big league victory with four scoreless innings as the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates edged the St. Louis Cardinals 2-1 Wednesday night.
Chandler (1-0), baseball’s top-rated pitching prospect, allowed just one hit and one walk while striking out three in his second big league outing.
Tommy Pham drove in two runs for the Pirates, who have won six of their last seven games.
Pirates starter Carmen Mlodzinski allowed one run on three hits and three walks in three innings. He struck out four.
Chandler took over in the fourth inning, then Isaac Mattson handled the eighth inning and Dennis Santana closed out the ninth for his 10th save.
Cardinals starter Sonny Gray (12-7) allowed two runs, one earned, on three hits in seven innings. He struck out seven and walked two.
St. Louis took a 1-0 lead in the second inning. Masyn Winn hit a two-out single, Thomas Saggese walked, and Pedro Pages poked an RBI single into right field.
Gray retired the first eight batters he saw. Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit a two-out single in the third inning and Jared Triolo walked, but Gray induced rally-killing groundout from Spencer Horwitz.
Lars Nootbaar walked with one out in the third inning and raced to third on Ivan Herrera’s single into right field, but Mlodzinski struck out the next two batters to strand them.
Pages hit a leadoff single in the fifth inning and Nootbaar drew a one-out walk, but Chandler retired the next two batters to end the threat.
Pittsburgh moved ahead 2-1 in the sixth inning. Kiner-Falefa led off with a double. Triolo drew another walk, then Horwitz reached on an error to load the bases.
After Kiner-Falefa was thrown out at home on a Bryan Reynolds grounder to first, Pham hit a two-run single to center. Andrew McCutchen walked with two outs to reload the bases, but Gray struck out Oneil Cruz to the end the rally.
The Cardinals only managed two base runners over the final four innings and neither got into scoring position.
