Shildt's risky move pays off for Cardinals

ST. LOUIS -- Looking for an offense that would carry them to a win, Cardinals manager Mike Shildt put José Martínez in the on-deck circle to pinch-hit in the bottom of the fourth on Friday night against the Pirates, even though Dakota Hudson’s pitch count was low and the game was still in the early innings.

When Matt Wieters singled and scored a run to tie the game, Martinez came up to pinch-hit with two runners on and two outs. And despite his strikeout, the move made it clear that the Cardinals were searching to break out offensively.

That offense came in the Cardinals’ four-run eighth inning. Paul Goldschmidt knocked the go-ahead base hit through the glove of shortstop Kevin Newman, and Marcell Ozuna launched a two-run home run en route to a 6-2 Cardinals win, snapping their five-game losing streak.

• Box score

“We took our shot to try to score,” Shildt said. “It’s something we hadn’t done as much, and thankfully we did it in the eighth.”

There were three other reasons besides looking for offense that Shildt noted for the decision to take out Hudson after only throwing 49 pitches after four innings, allowing six hits and two runs. The first was that a piece of skin had opened up on Hudson’s pointer finger, and Shildt wanted to get ahead of it even though Hudson insisted it was nothing.

The second reason was that the ball was in the air more than usual for Hudson, and with the top of the Pirates’ order coming up in the fifth, Shildt didn’t want Josh Bell or Starling Marte to inflict damage off of Hudson, who hadn’t struck out anyone and only registered three swings and misses.

“They were getting some swings going,” Shildt said. “I usually can be patient and will be patient, but that lineup was about to turn over, Bell and Marte both have numbers on him. Bell taking two good swings prior to that and he was coming up. Didn’t want anybody on in front of him.”

The third reason was that the Cardinals’ bullpen was fresh after quality starts from Miles Mikolas and Jack Flaherty in Los Angeles and the off-day on Thursday. The Cardinals had the weapons, and Shildt intended to use them. Four relievers combined to allow one hit and struck out five.

“They were ready to go,” Shildt said. “We could get to get through five innings effectively. That’s the key -- effectively.”

The bullpen’s effectiveness allowed the offense to work through the middle of the game until they were able to capitalize in the eighth.

Shildt pointed to the inconsistent offense as one of the reasons the Cardinals went winless over their five-game road trip to Oakland and Los Angeles. They were outscored 25-7 in those games and missed opportunity after opportunity.

“How do we be more consistent with [the offense]? It’s about the strike zone,” Shildt said before Friday’s game. “We just got through playing teams that are good offensively. When we’re good offensively, we’re controlling the strike zone. Our walks are down over the last two weeks, our strikeouts are up, so clearly we’re not controlling the part of the strike zone we’d like to control. … We’ve talked about making sure we’re in the strike zone and not going out in front of it.”

Controlling the strike zone is more than just controlling the count. If the hitter gets a good pitch to hit right away, he wants to pounce on it.

That’s what the Cardinals did early Friday, jumping on Pirates starter Chris Archer in the first for three straight singles, with Dexter Fowler scoring on Ozuna’s double-play groundout. Archer settled down and allowed seven hits throughout his six innings but only one more run after the first.

“It makes the pitcher’s job way tougher if you’re not going to chase them out of the zone,” Goldschmidt said. “It’s something we want to do. You also don’t want to be passive or just put the ball in play weakly.”

Archer struck out nine, but the Cardinals found the right pitches off of right-hander Richard Rodriguez.

“We did a better job later in the game of letting the game come to us and getting a good pitch to hit and putting a good swing on it,” Shildt said. “That’s the key to this thing.”