On Saturday night, the St. Louis Cardinals and Colorado Rockies faced off in game three of a four game series at Busch Stadium. The Cardinals won the first two games by the scores of 9-8 and 7-0, respectively.
And this time, the Rockies were the team that started off hot, eventually leading them to a 6-2 victory.
The starting pitchers for the game were Lance Lynn (8-5, 2.71) for the Cardinals, and Jorge De La Rosa (6-4, 5.03) for the Rockies.
In the top of the first inning, Charlie Blackmon hit a triple, and would soon after score when Carlos Gonzalez hit a sacrifice fly to make it 1-0 early on. That lead increased to 3-0 when, in the top of the fourth inning, Nolan Arenado hit a two-run home run. It was the power-hitting Arenado’s 26th home run of the season.
De La Rosa started off strong as well, keeping St. Louis out of scoring position in the early goings of the game aside from a Randal Grichuk double that beat the shift that was on him in the Rockies’ outfield.
But in the bottom half of the fourth, the Cardinals were finally able to get on the board, when Jhonny Peralta belted a solo home run deep to center field, as the Cardinals trailed 3-1. With the home run on Saturday, Peralta hit a home run in consecutive games for the 20th time in his career.
The bottom of the fifth inning featured the first hit from Brandon Moss, acquired in a trade between the Cardinals and Indians.
Ben Paulsen gave the Rockies a 4-1 lead with his eighth home run of the season, in the top of the sixth.
With two runners on and no one out, Randy Choate was brought in to replace Lynn, whose final line for the evening was: 5.0+ IP, 7 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 3 BB, 5 Ks. Right away, Choate was able to get former Cardinal Daniel Descalso to hit into a double play. He then threw three straight strikes to get out of the jam, and bail Lynn and the Cardinals out of potentially more damage.
After 1.2 scoreless innings by Choate, Seth Maness came in to pitch the end of the seventh inning, and got the last out.
In the top of the seventh, Grichuk robbed Michael McKenry of what would’ve been a two-run home run. However, the Rockies tacked on two more runs in the inning regardless, to make it a 6-1 game.
One of the brightest spots regarding the Cardinals lately has been the play of Stephen Piscotty, and on Saturday night, he extended his hit streak to seven games, when he hit an RBI single to make it a 6-2 game. During the seven game hitting streak, Piscotty has gone: (10-23, .435), 2 doubles, 4 RBI.
Newly acquired pitcher, and former closer Jonathan Broxton made his Cardinals debut in the top of the eighth inning, and, much like Moss a few day ago, was greeted with a nice ovation from the Busch Stadium crowd.
And Broxton made his presence known immediately, pitching a 1-2-3 inning.
In the end, the Rockies defeated the Cardinals 6-2, as Lynn fell to 8-6 on the year, while De La Rosa improved to 7-4. The Rockies improved to 44-58, and the Cardinals dropped to 66-38 in the loss.
Tomorrow, Jaime Garcia will start in the series finale.
(AP Photo/Scott Kane)
