ST. LOUIS — In his first start at Busch Stadium, rookie Quinn Mathews set a cool, crisp and methodically ruthless pace that the Cardinals matched for a clinical dissection of an opponent that appeared to be none of those things.

Mathews earned his first major league victory in the Cardinals’ 4-1 win Friday night against the porous Pittsburgh Pirates at Busch Stadium. Mathews struck out seven, pitched a career-high 5 2/3 innings, and held the Bucs to a single run on five hits. The Cardinals never trailed after Jimmy Crooks’ two-run homer in the second gave them an early lead.

And the Pirates really never threatened.

They committed three errors, failed to close off the eighth when they had a chance to keep the game within two runs, and had a potential rally ricochet off the footwear of a baserunner.

Jordan Walker had as many singles in the game as Pittsburgh had errors, and in the eighth inning those two trends converged. Walker opened the inning with his third hit of the game, he got to third after a pair of groundouts, and when teammate Joshua Baez appeared to hit into a third groundout, Walker headed for home. When the throw to first was wide, the Bucs had their third error of the game, and Walker’s second run restored a three-run lead.

Ryne Stanek secured it with a perfect ninth, earning his second save of the season.

The tone, the tempo was set by Mathews and his effective mix.

Mathews superb in Busch debut

From the start of his Cardinals career at Busch Stadium, Mathews appeared in control.

One of the things the lefty has been working on is being more efficient within starts to allow his pitch count to reach deeper into starts.

He got his first three outs on 15 pitches, needed only 13 to pilot through the second inning, and by the time he was done with the third inning, Mathews had faced the minimum number of Pirates. He got nine outs from nine batters and did so on 41 pitches. The one walk he issued to a Pirate in their first look at him was promptly erased with a double play.

And the Mathews started cranking up the Ks.

The lefty struck out the final two batters of the third inning, and he finished off his first turn through the lineup with a three-pitch strikeout of No. 9 hitter Henry Davis. Including those two strikeouts, Mathews struck out six of the final 15 Pirates he faced. The final two outs he got — in the sixth inning — came on strikeouts.

After falling behind 3-0, Mathews struck out All-Star Bryan Reynolds on slider.

The lefty snapped a curveball past Oneil Cruz for the next strikeout.

Mathews finished two other strikeouts with a change-up, and by the time he handed the ball and the lead over to the bullpen he seven strikeouts. He finished them with four different pitches, and he coaxed 14 swings and misses. The Pirates swung at Mathews’ wily change-up seven times total and missed on five of them as it vanished beneath their bat path. He was able to get ahead often enough that he change-up could be used judiciously (only 16 times) but also ruthlessly.

He didn’t give up a hit on it.

The only run Mathews allowed came in the fifth inning, and the whole opportunity started when Mathews hit Jake Mangum with a pitch. A single by Jared Triolo scored Mangum with two outs. Mathews ended the inning a few pitches later with a strikeout.

It finished with the change-up.

Crooks lifts Cardinals to lead

Pirates starter Jared Jones matched Mathews out for out through the first 2 1/3 innings. Jones retired the first seven Cardinals he faced, and he got to the backend of the lineup without allowing a baserunner until after Mathews had.

Nolan Gorman interrupted that run when he roped Jones’ change-up for a double to the right-center gap. Gorman was able to advance to third on the error, and the next swing would make those extra 90 feet academic.

Crooks launched the third slider he saw for a two-run homer.

Jones fell behind with a 90-mph slider on the first pitch to Crooks. With help from a challenge of the ball call, Jones leveled the count when a 90-mph slider caught the strike zone to overturn the ump’s decision. Jones went back to a slider a third time, and at 91 mph it hooked over the plate and into Crooks’ wheelhouse. He sent it 416 feet into the right-field seats for the first runs of the game — and a lead the Cardinals would never relinquish.

They widened the lead to 3-0 in the fourth when back-to-back singles by Walker and Jose Fermin set up Nathan Church’s sacrifice fly.

Clipped cleat costly for Pirates

As if some of their poor play in the field (see below) wasn’t enough, the Pirates were also unlucky at the worst time on the basepaths. In the eighth inning, Pittsburgh had the tying run at the plate in Cruz and a runner already on base. The Cardinals called to the bullpen for veteran lefty Caleb Ferguson to face Cruz, and it appeared like Cruz was going to extend the inning with a base hit to right field.

Worst case for the Cardinals, Cruz sped for second and the tying run got into scoring position. The likeliest case for the Pirates, they’d have runners at the corners and their No. 5 hitter up.

That didn’t happen.

Cruz’s single clipped Reynolds as he took off from third. The ball appeared to catch the back of Reynolds cleat so that he was immediately out and the inning over. Cruz would be credited with a single, but he had no reason to actually reach first because the rally ended right in the midst of it, and nary a Cardinal had to get a glove on the ball.

Bucs: some yuck on defense

The misplays didn’t prove as costly until the eighth inning as they could have been for Pittsburgh, but they were there all the same — eyesores on the field and a couple of errors in the box score.

In the second inning, a popup dropped between the catcher and first baseman to keep Fermin at the plate and cost starter Jones a few extra pitches. The right-hander eventually struck out Fermin, but the raggedness of the Pirates’ defense had been revealed. In the Cardinals’ two-run burst during the third inning, Gorman’s double got him to third base when Cruz could cleanly grasp the ball the center field and Gorman advanced.

He would have scored from second on Crooks’ homer, but the error gave Crooks’ numerous other ways to get Gorman home.

Three batters after the error, Ivan Herrera hit a ground ball to shortstop Triolo’s left. He lunged for the ball awkwardly and the grounder glanced off his glove to allow Herrera to reach first. He was stranded there.

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