Kingham sets down 1st 20 in debut

PITTSBURGH — Nick Kingham accomplished something Sunday that only one major-league pitcher had achieved in the last century.

In his big-league debut, Kingham carried a perfect game into the seventh inning and led the Pirates to a 5-0 shutout of the Cardinals. He joined Johnny Cueto in 2008 as the only pitchers in the last 100 years allowing one hit with no walks and at least nine strikeouts in his debut.

“That’s how you plan it up, not to let anybody on,” Kingham said. “It’s incredible how it happened. Just kind of starting from the get-go, it went well. It’s corny, but it took everybody. I’m really fortunate and really happy about it.”

The right-hander retired 20 straight batters before Paul DeJong singled down the left-field line with two outs in the seventh. Kingham, 26, finished with nine strikeouts on 98 pitches, 72 for strikes.

More than the numbers, manager Clint Hurdle was pleased with Kingham’s poise.

“Watching him, it was just his next start,” Hurdle said. “It had to be more than that. He compartmentalized very well.”

Elias Diaz went 3-for-4 with two RBIs as the Pirates won their fifth straight hours after Kingham was recalled from Triple A for a spot start.

Right-hander Luke Weaver (2-2) took the loss after allowing four runs on six hits with six strikeouts in 51⁄3 innings.

“(Kingham) obviously was having a good game, so you have to stay with him and put up the zeroes just like you normally would,” Weaver said. “You just try to put that to the side and let him do what he’s doing, and you focus on the task at hand.

“It was just a well-pitched ballgame from him.”