PITTSBURGH (AP) – Nick Kingham carried a perfect game into the seventh inning in his major league debut to lead the Pittsburgh Pirates to a 5-0 win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday.
Kingham, a 26-year-old rookie right-hander, retired 20 straight batters before Paul DeJong singled down the left-field line with two outs in the seventh. He finished with one hit and nine strikeouts on 98 pitches (72 strikes) after being recalled from Triple-A Indianapolis earlier in the day.
Elias Diaz went 3-for-4 with three singles and two RBIs as the Pirates won their fifth straight game and completed a three-game sweep of the Cardinals.
Right-hander Luke Weaver (2-2) took the loss after allowing four runs runs on six hits with six strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings. He pitched five scoreless before walking the bases loaded with one out in the sixth.
Diaz singled down the right-field line, scoring Starling Marte and Josh Bell for a 2-0 lead. Right-handed reliever Jordan Hicks replaced Weaver before Colin Moran extended the Pirates’ lead to 3-0 with an RBI single to center that drove in Corey Dickerson from third.
Hicks hit Adam Frazier with the bases loaded, giving Pittsburgh a 4-0 lead after six, and David Freese had a pinch-hit RBI single in the eighth to make it 5-0.
