PITTSBURGH -- Well, there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is that the Pirates, at long last, have scored a run off Adam Wainwright. Thanks to Michael Chavis’ solo home run, Wainwright’s scoreless streak against the Bucs ended at 39 1/3 innings. His retirement cannot come soon enough to baseball fans in the greater Pittsburgh area.

The bad news is that the end of Wainwright’s streak was one of the few moments worth celebrating. On a night when the Pirates didn’t execute well in any arena, they lost to the Cardinals, 5-3, on Friday at PNC Park. It was a night they would, for the most part, like to collectively erase.

Here are three observations from Friday night’s loss:

Thompson continues stellar stretch
The month of May continues to treat Zach Thompson well.

Thompson continued his impressive month with a solid performance against the Cardinals, allowing just one run across five innings. The right-hander only had two strikeouts on the evening, but allowed one walk and generated weak contact.

Even the one run that Thompson allowed wasn’t really his own doing (more on that below).

Across 17 innings in May, Thompson has yielded just the one run with 12 strikeouts to five walks. Entering the month, Thompson’s ERA was 10.05. After this latest outing, Thompson’s ERA stands at a much more palatable 4.88.

“I’m finally able to get in my routine and do what I’ve done for a lot of my life,” Thompson said. “It’s nice just to get out there and throw and put up zeroes, help my team get in a winning situation.”

Questionable baserunning sinks potential rally
Rodolfo Castro pulled off a delayed steal of second base on Yadier Molina and lived to tell the tale. He tried the stunt again just minutes later. No dice.

With two outs in the fifth inning, Castro attempted a delayed steal of third base and was thrown out by Molina. Not only did it break a cardinal rule of baseball, but it ended a rally in which the Pirates had Wainwright on the ropes.

Castro had singled and Ben Gamel had drawn an eight-pitch walk. The Pirates had runners on first and second for Ke’Bryan Hayes, who would have had a 2-0 advantage in his third plate appearance against Wainwright. Bryan Reynolds loomed on deck. Plus, there was little for Castro to gain by advancing 90 feet; he’s already fast enough to score on a hit. In the subsequent half-inning, the Cardinals made the mistake hurt even more by piling on four runs and pushing the deficit to five.

“The one thing that we talked about afterwards is he had delayed once on Yadi,” manager Derek Shelton said. “We're talking about a guy that's a Hall of Famer and has really good awareness; it's probably not going to happen the second time. [Molina's] going to be aware, and he just got too aggressive.”

Odd double play results in run for Cardinals
The lone run that Thompson allowed Friday night came on an odd -- and likely rare -- 9-3-4-3 double play, one in which a lot unfolded in a short amount of time.

With one out in the first inning and runners at the corners, Nolan Arenado hit a fly ball to right field. Jack Suwinski fielded the fly ball and fired it. Paul Goldschmidt, the runner on first base, appeared to think Suwinski’s throw was headed towards home plate and took off for second base.

Chavis cut the ball off, and Goldschmidt was in no man’s land. The Pirates got Goldschmidt out, but Tommy Edman scored, giving the Cardinals a run.

Chavis admitted after the game that he asked if his decision was the right move. The result didn’t make or break the game, but it did put the Pirates behind early against Wainwright, whose dominance has left the Pirates with little margin for error as of late.

“I don’t think they designed it that way, and we definitely didn’t design it that way and it turned into a run,” Shelton said.

Added Chavis: “We talked about it after the play. It might be one of those things where if it was the ninth inning, we’d try to save that run.”