Welcome back, Kang Jung-ho.
Playing in his first game since suffering a knee injury in September last year, Kang homered twice, while Francisco Liriano continued his dominance at the Busch Stadium as the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St Louis Cardinals 4-2 on Friday night.
Kang, who was activated from the disabled list before the game, ripped the first pitch he saw from Tyler Lyons into the right field bullpen for a two-run homer to give the Pirates a 3-0 lead in the sixth. Kang followed with a huge homer into the upper deck in left in the eighth.
Photo: AP
It was Kang’s second multi-homer game of his MLB career. He hit two off of the San Francisco Giants on Aug. 22 last year.
Liriano (3-1) improved to 4-0 with a 2.07 ERA in six career starts at the Busch Stadium.
Liriano fanned 10 through seven innings for the 24th career double-digit strikeout performance of his career.
Mark Melancon got his eighth save for Pittsburgh, who won their fifth straight road game and improved to 4-0 against the Cardinals this season.
Harrison’s two-out infield single scored Starling Marte to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead in the second.
Harrison has hit safely in 12 of his past 13 games and has nine RBI during that stretch.
Cardinals starter Carlos Martinez (4-2) left with one out in the fourth due to fatigue.
He walked two of the three batters he faced in the inning to load the bases when he came out in favor of Lyons.
Martinez gave up a run in 3-1/3 innings and 29 of his 52 pitches were strikes.
Randal Grichuk scored from second on a Liriano wild pitch, while Aledmys Diaz scored on a sacrifice fly in the seventh for the Cardinals runs.
In Miami, Taiwan’s Chen Wei-yin’s Marlins beat Philadelphia 6-4, though the lefty had a difficult day, pitching five innings for 11 hits and four runs.
Giancarlo Stanton hit a tiebreaking two-run homer in the eighth inning to rescue Miami, their 11th victory in 12 games.
Two MLB games scheduled in Puerto Rico this month have been moved to Miami over fears about the Zika virus.
MLB and the MLB players’ union jointly announced the move on Friday.
The Pittsburgh Pirates and Miami Marlins had been scheduled to play in San Juan on May 30 and 31.
The decision to move the series to Miami arose after numerous players expressed concerns to the union about the virus, which is primarily spread through mosquito bites, but can also be spread through sexual contact.
It has been linked to the brain defect microcephaly and blamed for a recent surge in cases of babies suffering from the defect in Brazil.
The two games were to be the first regular-season games played in Puerto Rico since the Marlins and New York Mets played a three-game set in San Juan in 2010.
In other games on Friday, it was:
‧ Yankees 3, Red Sox 2
‧ Cubs 8, Nationals 6
‧ White Sox 10, Twins 4
‧ Reds 5, Brewers 1
‧ Indians 7, Royals 1
‧ Blue Jays 5, Dodgers 2
‧ Rangers 5, Tigers 1
‧ Marlins 6, Phillies 4
‧ Diamondbacks 7, Braves 2
‧ Astros 6, Mariners 3
‧ Rays 5, Angels 2
‧ Padres 2, Mets 0
‧ Giants 6, Rockies 4
Additional reporting by staff writer
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