For the third time in three starts, young St. Louis Cardinals righty Lance Lynn shut down the opposition and set his team up for a victory. The 24-year old used pinpoint command to hold a struggling Pirates offense to just four hits and one run -- an Alex Presley inside-the-park home run -- over 7.0 innings to improve his personal record to 3-0 this season. As for the Cardinals offense, they only produced eight hits on the night, but saved two insurance runs for the top of the ninth as Daniel Descalso homered to right field and Rafael Furcal doubled to left field to score Shane Robinson.
The real advantage on the night came from Cardinals pitching, who held the Pirates to just four hits and one run for the entire evening in the 4-1 win. SB Nation's Cardinals blog, Viva El Birdos, summed the performance up like this:
Lynn was nails tonight. The grizzly right-hander didn't miss a beat after the Schumakiavellian start the game. After the Schumaker-abbetted inside-the-park homer, Lynn allowed only three more hits, issued but one walk, and would not allow another run in his seven-innning start. Boggs shutdown the eighth in dominating fashion with two strikeouts. Motte closed the game out for his third save of the year.
Game 2 of the series starts at 7:05 p.m. on Saturday.
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