After an intense series at Busch Stadium earlier in the week against Los Angeles, the St. Louis Cardinals headed west to California on Thursday to face the Dodgers once again, this time in a four game series.
For Thursday night’s match-up, the pitchers on the mound were Michael Wacha for the Cardinals and Carlos Frias for the Dodgers.
And the St. Louis Cardinals offense, which sputtered during the past week, for the second game in a row, scored seven runs in a 7-1 victory at Dodger Stadium.
The game started with second baseman Kolten Wong singling towards Andre Ethier. However, Frias was able to pick off Wong while Matt Carpenter was at the plate, for out number one. Carpenter then walked, and Matt Holliday was able to get on first after a close call at the bag was challenged by the Cardinals, and the original ruling of him being out was overturned.
On that play, however, Carpenter was out at second, bringing up Jhonny Peralta with two outs. Peralta singled to put two on with two outs, but Mark Reynolds struck out to end the top of the first. In the bottom of the first, Wacha had himself the first 1-2-3 inning of the game, making quick work of Joc Pederson, Yasmani Grandal, and Adrian Gonzalez.
Frias had a 1-2-3 inning to start off the top of the second, and Wacha only allowed a single to Justin Turner in the bottom of the second, as both teams headed to the third inning still scoreless.
But in the top of the third inning, the Cardinals started their dominance in the game, and scored the first runs as well. After Carpenter reached base on a fielding error by Turner, Holliday singled. Another single by Peralta scored Carpenter as the Cardinals took a 1-0 lead. Reynolds then hit a line drive to right field, scoring Holliday, and, while those turned out to be the only runs scored in the inning, St. Louis had a 2-0 lead over the Dodgers.
While both Frias and Wacha pitched a shutout fourth inning, the Cardinals tacked on three more runs in the top of the fourth; the first being a sacrifice fly by Holliday scoring Wong, who walked earlier. The second being a line drive single by Jason Heyward, scoring Carpenter, as well as Peralta, and St. Louis then had themselves a 4-0 lead heading into the bottom of the fifth.
Wacha, despite allowing back to back singles by Jimmy Rollins and Enrique Hernandez, was able to get out of the jam, leaving the Dodgers to strand two runners while the Cardinals maintained their four run lead.
Los Angeles did not get on the board until the following inning, where Gonzalez scored after a sacrifice fly by Alex Guerrero.
Up 5-1 in the eighth inning, after a walk to Yadier Molina, a double by Randal Grichuk and a double by Wong scored Molina, as well as Grichuk to give the Cardinals a 7-1 lead, a lead they held for the remainder of the game. The final line of the evening for Wacha: 7.0 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 5 K.
Meanwhile, Kevin Siegrist and Carlos Villanueva pitched in relief, shutting down the Dodgers, and in the end, the Cardinals emerged victorious, taking game one of the four game series. With the win, the Cardinals improve to 35-18, and the Dodgers fall to 31-22. Wacha gets his eighth win of the season and improves to 8-1.
Tomorrow, Carlos Martinez, who pitched the series finale against the Dodgers last Sunday, will get the start.
(AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
