Watch Pittsburgh Pirates Vs. St. Louis Cardinals Live Online Free: Crucial Series For NL Rivals

Watch a crucial pennant race matchup live online, free and legally, when the struggling Pittsburgh Pirates storm into St. Louis to face the Cardinals in the opener of an all-important three-game series that could be the Pirates’ last chance to stage a serious run at knocking the Cards off their perch atop the National League Central division.

But the Pirates ship will need to be righted in a hurry, as the Bucs enter the crucial weekend set as losers of four straight, which knocked them to 6 1/2 games behind St. Louis, undoing much of what they accomplished with a sizzling 18 wins in 23 games from August 5 to August 29 — a stretch that, however, saw them gain only two games on the team with the best record in baseball.

But in their four-game skid this week, Pittsburgh lost not only the two games gained over that red-hot stretch, which began when the Pirates were 5 1/2 games back, they dropped an extra game in the standings as well.

To find out how to watch the Pittsburgh Pirates vs. St. Louis Cardinals game live online free and legally, see the streaming link in the final paragraph of this article. First pitch is scheduled for 7:15 p.m. Central Time on Friday, September 4 at Busch Stadium in St, Louis, Missouri, 8:15 Eastern Time, 5:15 Pacific.

Though the Cardinals appear to have the clear advantage in the pennant race, in head-to-head competition the two teams have been almost evenly matched in the 2015 season. St. Louis has won seven of the games played so far, while the Pirates have won six. The Cardinals have outscored Pittsburgh by a grand total of three runs over those 13 games.

In fact, five of the 13 so far have gone to extra innings, with the home team winning in walk-off fashion all five times.

But the Pirates have won just one of six at Busch Stadium. They’ll need to do much better than that — in fact, they probably need to sweep all three games this weekend — to get themselves in a position where winning the division becomes a realistic possibility. The two teams meet one more time for three games in Pittsburgh between September 28 and September 30.

To watch Friday’s Pittsburgh Pirates vs. St. Louis Cardinals game live online free, use the feed provided by MLB.TV at this link, where the streaming subscription service of Major League Baseball is offering the matchup as its “Free Game of the Day,” meaning the game may be streamed live by anyone without a fee (a free MLB.com membership is required). The Pirates vs. Cardinals game can also be viewed for free using the MLB At Bat app for mobile devices, as well as on the MLB channel offered by set-top boxes such as the Apple TV and Roku.

[Image: Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Images]