WJPA Sports

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Thomas Saggese hit a go-ahead RBI double and Jordan Walker homered in a three-run seventh inning to help the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-1 on Thursday.  Miles Mikolas allowed one run on four hits and a walk and struck out five in five innings.   Kyle Leahy (4-1) recorded four strikeouts in two scoreless innings of relief, Riley O’Brien pitched a scoreless eighth and JoJo Romero pitched the ninth for his fifth save.  Pirates rookie Braxton Ashcraft allowed one run on four hits and recorded five strikeouts in a career-best 5 2/3 innings before being replaced by Yohan Ramírez (1-2).  Iván Herrera lined a double to left field, scoring Lars Nootbaar to tie the game at 1 in the bottom of the third inning.  Tommy Pham lined his eighth home run of the season 440 feet over the left-field bullpen in the first inning to put Pittsburgh ahead 1-0.

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP) — Drew Allar and Andy Kotelnicki have developed quite the quarterback-coach tandem in their 18 months together. Their partnership has grown to the point where Kotelnicki, Penn State’s second-year offensive coordinator, let Allar plan out most of what the No. 2 Nittany Lions would drill during their final training camp practices last week. The fast-talking Kotelnicki and head coach James Franklin have been impressed. They’ve seen enough to know Allar’s improved command of the offense will give the Nittany Lions a shot at another deep run the College Football Playoff.