Konnor Griffin, five pitchers end Pirates' losing streak with shutout win over Cardinals

Colin Beazley, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on May 20, 2026

Published in Baseball

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ST. LOUIS — It’s been a tough few days in a rough few weeks for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Wednesday was a night where things went right.

The Pirates snapped a four-game losing streak with a 7-0 win against the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday night at Busch Stadium. The team’s bullpen has been shaky, but Carmen Mlodzinski and four relievers combined on a five-hit shutout.

Konnor Griffin went 4 for 5, scoring three of the seven runs. The win, the team’s first against the Cardinals in six attempts this year, pushed the Pirates (25-24) back above .500.

Mlodzinski started the shutout with five scoreless innings, though he needed 95 pitches to do so. He allowed four hits and just one walk, striking out only one, but 20 foul balls and just four whiffs drove up his pitch count.

He handed a 3-0 lead to the bullpen. The Pirates racked up 10 hits in five-plus innings against Cardinals starter Michael McGreevy, including Spencer Horwitz’s solo homer in the second and an RBI single from Jhostynxon Garcia in the fourth. Garcia drove in Griffin for his first career RBI.

Griffin scored the Pirates’ third run in the sixth, as the Pirates loaded the bases with no outs against McGreevy but brought just one run home on Nick Gonzales’ sacrifice fly.

Yohan Ramirez followed Mlodzinski with a scoreless sixth inning, though it came with his near-routine chaos. He loaded the bases with one out on a single, a hit batter and a walk (Nolan Gorman, who walked, swung at a pitch that hit him). Ramirez then fell behind 3-0 on Masyn Winn, came back to strike him out, before facing Cesar Prieto. Prieto is 1 for 17 in his major league career, but roped a liner to the right-field wall that would have tied the game if not for Jake Mangum’s sliding catch.

After a 1-2-3 seventh from Evan Sisk, the Pirates broke it open and handed a seven-run lead to Justin Lawrence. Lawrence threw a scoreless eighth with two strikeouts and a hit batter, then Dennis Santana threw a 1-2-3 ninth.

It was over when …

The Pirates broke it open with a four-run eighth. The bottom of the order, plus Gonzales hitting leadoff, managed four singles in five batters to bring in two, before Bryan Reynolds scored two more with an opposite-field double down the left-field line. All four runs were charged to Cardinals right-hander Matt Svanson.

On the mound

The Pirates now have six shutouts this season. In three of those games, it was Mlodzinski who either started or threw bulk innings.

Ramirez was shaky, but Sisk responded well from blowing a lead on Tuesday and Lawrence had a strong eighth. Santana looked like himself in the ninth, an inning that he surely hopes will help him get rolling.

At the plate

The Pirates racked up 15 hits, including 12 singles. They went 6 for 15 with runners in scoring position.

It was the bottom of the Pirates order that did the damage. The bottom four of Griffin, Endy Rodriguez, Garcia and Mangum all had multiple hits, accounting for 10 total and two walks, and combined to score five runs.

Most valuable player

Griffin, who went 4 for 5 with four singles. He’s batting .278 on the season and .317 (32 for 101) since his 20th birthday on April 24.

Griffin also became the first player younger than Busch Stadium III to play in the ballpark. He was born 20 days after the stadium opened on April 4, 2006.

Up next

The Pirates and Cardinals conclude their three-game series on Thursday at 1:15 p.m. ET. Braxton Ashcraft (2-2, 3.09 ERA) will start against Cardinals right-hander Dustin May (3-4, 4.81).

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