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Pirates travel to St. Louis for critical series

By John Perrotto for The 2 min read

Neal Huntington reiterated the Pirates’ goal.

“We want to win the division,” the Pirates general manager said Sunday night before his team rallied for a 13-6. “We want to make the postseason, first and foremost, but the division title is what we are shooting for and we feel we have a club capable of doing that.”

The Pirates are five games behind the Cardinals in the National League Central after finishing second to them each of the last two seasons.

So with a little more than two-thirds of the season gone, the Pirates have some ground to make up if they going to capture the division title even though they have the third-best record in the major leagues at 65-44 behind only the Cardinals (71-40) and Kansas City Royals (66-44).

The Pirates will get a chance to cut into the Cardinals’ lead starting tonight when the teams open a three-game series at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

“The Cardinals are obviously a good team and they’ve been playing great all year,” Pirates second baseman Neil Walker said. “If we’re going to catch them, we’re going to have to beat them when we play them because you can’t count on other teams beating them, as good as they are.”

The Pirates and Cardinals have already played a number of memorable games this year.

The season series is even at 5-5 and five of the 10 games have been decided in walk-off fashion in extra innings — three by the Cardinals in May and two by the Pirates in July.

Busch Stadium has been a house of horrors for the Pirates in recent years as they have lost 18 of their last 22 games, including the three extra-innings losses in May. However, manager Clint Hurdle says the past does not necessarily affect the future.

“Our guys really don’t worry about stuff like that,” Hurdle said. “They just play.”

Pirates rookie shortstop Jung Ho Kang has gone 12-for-31 (.387) with a double and two home runs against the Cardinals. St. Louis second baseman Kolten Wong is hitting .306 (11-for-36) against the Pirates this season with a double, three homers and three stolen bases.

Left-hander Jeff Locke (6-6, 4.31) will start for the Pirates on Tuesday night against Carlos Martinez (11-4, 2.57). Then, Gerrit Cole (14-5, 2.39) faces Michael Wacha (13-4, 2.92) on Wednesday night and lefty Francisco Liriano (7-6, 3.13) opposes Lance Lynn (9-6, 2.76) on Thursday night.

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