The St. Louis Cardinals and Arizona Diamondbacks faced off at Busch Stadium on Tuesday in game two of a three game series. The following day, St. Louis pulled off a 3-2 victory in 10 innings, after a walk-off home run by shortstop Jhonny Peralta.
But no extra innings were needed on Tuesday, as St. Louis won 6-4.
For the Cardinals, veteran Jaime Garcia (0-1, 2.57) got the start, while for the Diamondbacks, young pitcher Archie Bradley (2-1, 4.00) got the start.
In the first inning, Arizona took an early 2-0 lead, as, following base hits by Mark Trumbo and A.J. Pollock, Yasmany Tomas doubled to right field. Garcia got out of the inning afterwards, but not before the damage was done early on.
St. Louis looked to bounce back in the bottom of the first. Bradley started off walking both Kolten Wong and Matt Carpenter back to back. This brought up Matt Holliday, who was, entering the game, one game away from tying the Cardinals record with consecutive games on base (the record is 42, set by Albert Pujols in 2008).
And Holliday delivered, with a single up the middle, scoring Wong, and tying Pujols’ record in the process. After a strikeout by Matt Adams, Peralta tripled down the right field line, not only scoring Carpenter, but Holliday as well, giving the Cardinals a 3-2 lead. Yadier Molina then grounded out, but in the process, scored Peralta, which was Molina’s 19th RBI of the year, and it gave the Cardinals a 4-2 lead. Jason Heyward then popped out to end the inning.
Garcia stepped back up to the mound in the top of the second inning, and with one out, Nick Ahmed hit his second home run of the season, cutting the lead of the Cardinals to 4-3. But in the bottom of the second inning, Randal Grichuk responded with a solo home run of his own, giving the Cardinal a two-run lead once again, this time at 5-3.
As for Tomas of the Diamondbacks, he wound up getting his second hit of the game during the top of the third inning, and scoring another run in the process as the score was then 5-4 in favor of the Cardinals. Bradley followed that with pitching a 1-2-3 bottom of the third, as the game headed to the fourth inning. During the top of the fourth inning, with two outs, Trumbo attempted to steal second, but Molina doing what he does best, caught Trumbo stealing to end the top half of the fourth.
Molina then led off the bottom of the fourth with a single, bringing up Heyward, who hit into what could have potentially been a double play ball, but an error by Aaron Hill led to just Molina getting out at second base. Heyward then stole second with Grichuk up to bat. Grichuk would then hit a single to left field, scoring Heyward, giving St. Louis a 6-4 lead with one out. He, like Heyward, then stole second base, this time with Garcia at the plate, who struck out. Wong then walked, to bring up Carpenter with two on and two out. But Carpenter could not deliver, though the Cardinals got at least one run out of the inning.
In the fifth inning, Garcia got his fifth strikeout of the game, and he threw a 1-2-3 inning as well.
A scary moment happened for the Cardinals in the bottom of the fifth, when, with one out, Adams hit a double, and during his run towards second, he began limping. He was, however, able to walk off the field under his own power, as Mark Reynolds entered to take his place.
Ahmed stepped up to bat in the top of the sixth with runners already on first and third base, as Seth Maness began warming up in the Cardinals bullpen. And Garcia got Ahmed to do what Maness knows a thing or two about, and that’s grounding into a double play, ending the inning with the Cardinals’ 6-4 lead intact.
Instead of Maness entering the game in relief for the top of the seventh, Matt Belisle entered instead. The final line of the evening for Garcia: Jaime Garcia – 6.0 IP, 8 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 0 BB, 5 K. Belisle pitched out of a based loaded-two out jam in the top of the seventh inning, and then pitched a shutout eighth inning as well, which was capped off by a strikeout of David Peralta.
In the top of the ninth inning, with the Cardinals still ahead 6-4, Belisle continued to pitch for the Cardinals, and pitched to get the first two outs, but when two base-runners got on, Maness was called in to finish the game and get the save, which he did.
Meanwhile, Garcia won his first game of 2015 with the Cardinals.
With the victory, St. Louis became the first team in the National League to reach 30 wins (the Astros won their 30th earlier in the day), as they improve to 30-16, while the Diamondbacks fall to 21-24 on the season. The Cardinals are have the best record in baseball as well.
For tomorrow night’s game, Lance Lynn will get the start, as the Cardinals look to sweep the Diamondbacks.
(AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
