Home Baseball Cardinals win their 20th game of the season!

Cardinals win their 20th game of the season!

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St. Louis not only entered Tuesday’s game against the rival Chicago Cubs five and a half games in first place, not only were they on a seven-game winning streak, and not only did they mount an amazing comeback the night before, but they also entered with a franchise record 19-6 start to the season.

But now, it’s a 20-6 start to the season.

And once again, it came in dramatic fashion, as their win streak increased to eight.

Tuesday night’s match-up featured Tyler Lyons (making his 2015 debut) on the mound for the Cardinals. Lyons, 27, has had frequent stints throughout the Cardinals’ organization. On the mound for the Cubs was Kyle Hendricks (0-1, 5.23).

The first batter of the game was Dexter Fowler, who grounded out to Matt Carpenter. This was followed by Anthony Rizzo, who hit a solo home run on Monday night. He would hit a double on a ball that barely was inside the line. Kris Bryant, the Cubs’ top prospect, would strike out. Jorge Soler couldn’t capitalize on the lead off double, as Lyons’ first inning with the Cardinals in over a year would be a scoreless one.

Up first for the Cardinals was Jon Jay. Hendricks would hit Jay with a pitch (he was also hit last night). Carpenter then stepped up, but popped out to Fowler for the first out. Matt Holliday would get hit a single up the middle as Jay advanced to third.

With one out, Matt Adams popped out to shallow center to Starlin Castro, and a risky attempt to score by Jay backfired, as he was tagged out at the plate.

Lyons would go back to work in the second inning, first facing Castro, who would get on first base after a strikeout-wild pitch. Junior Lake, hitting .330 entering the game, and hit a single to right. With two on and no one out, Lyons was able to recover with two straight strikeouts, but then walked Addison Russell to load the bases for Fowler. But he would strike Fowler out as well, as the Cubs leaving the bases loaded, and the score still remained 0-0.

Jhonny Peralta led off the bottom of the second with a double, and would advance to third after a popup by Jason Heyward. With catcher Yadier Molina back in the lineup, he would line a single up the middle, scoring Peralta, to give the Cardinals the 1-0 lead with one out. That RBI Molina hit was his 80th career RBI against the Chicago Cubs.

Lyons recorded his fifth strikeout of the game when Bryant check swung. Shortly thereafter, Lyons would commit a throwing error trying to pick-off Rizzo at first, who, with his speed, would advance to third with one out. Although Soler popped out to left field next, Rizzo tied the game at 1-1.

While his breaking ball stunned the Cubs’ batters during the game, and while he had six strikeouts through three innings, Lyons’ pitch count had risen to nearly 70 before the start of the fourth inning. This would require the bullpen to be on their toes, something that they’ve been on over the last few games.

During the bottom of the fourth inning, both Adams and Peralta reached base safely, with the latter arriving on an error, to bring up Heyward with two on and no one out. Heyward grounded out, as Peralta would be forced out at second, but runners were on the corners with one out for Molina, who already had a base hit earlier in the game, that gave the Cardinals their first run.

Molina hit a grounder to the shortstop, who first threw out Heyward at second, and at first, the end of the play deemed Molina safe at first, giving the Cardinals a 2-1 lead. However, a challenge by the Cubs showed Rizzo’s foot was on the bag before it stretched off, so the game remained tied.

In the top of the fifth, with runners on the corners, Bryant would singled and put the Cubs ahead 2-1. Meanwhile, in the Cardinals bullpen, Seth Maness began to warm up, as the pitch count for Lyons began to skyrocket.

Manager Mike Matheny came to the mound to take Lyons out to a nice ovation by the crowd at Busch Stadium.

Maness first faced Castro, who grounded into a force play, but a play in which Rizzo and Bryant scored, giving the Cubs a 4-1 lead.

The bottom of the fifth started with a double by Kolten Wong, and a hit-by-pitch on Peter Bourjos, Jay flied out, which brought Carpenter to the plate.

And with one swing of the bat, Carpenter launched a three-run home run to tie the game at 4-4.

It was his 30th career home run, as well as career RBI’s 200-202.

To start the sixth inning, Mitch Harris entered in relief for Maness, and pitched a scoreless half inning, finishing it off with a strike out while Russell was on second after a double.

Cubs reliever Edwin Jackson entered the game to relieve Hendricks. In the bottom of the sixth inning, Wong and Molina both reached on base with back-to-back singles, as Mark Reynolds would pinch-hit for Harris. Reynolds, who hit a huge grand slam yesterday, would nearly hit a three-run homer, but hit a RBI double, scoring Molina and give the Cardinals the 5-4 lead. Jay would be hit (again), and that loaded the bases for Carpenter.

He would hit a sacrifice fly to score Wong, and the Cardinals took a 6-4 lead.

Holliday then hit an infield single as the bases remained loaded. Pitcher James Russell then entered for the Cubs, as Adams grounded out to end the inning. Kevin Siegrist pitched the top of the seventh, and continued the solid efforts of the Cardinals bullpen, by pitching a scoreless half inning.

With Heyward on third base and two outs, Wong would hit a single scoring Heyward to make it 7-4 St. Louis.

Heading into the top of the eighth, Miguel Socolovich entered in relief with two on, one out. He struck out Russell, and with the bases loaded after a walk, Rizzo grounded out to end the inning, as the Cubs stranded the bases loaded for the second time in the game.

For the Cardinals in the ninth inning, Trevor Rosenthal entered for the save attempt. An attempt which was successful as the Cardinals would win 7-4.

The victory moved the Cardinals to 14 games over .500, and dropped the Cubs to one game over .500, as their record is now 13-12.

An interesting fact in the victory is that Carpenter is the first Cardinals player with 20 extra-base hits in the team’s first 26 games of a season since Stan Musial in 1954.

It’s been an intense series so far between these two teams, and it doesn’t seem to cool down anytime soon.

Tomorrow, Jon Lester will pitch for the Cubs, while Lance Lynn will pitch for the Cardinals.

 

 

 

(AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

 

 

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