On a day where legends were immortalized in the Cardinals Hall of Fame, the current Cardinals’ team looked to keep their amazing season going.
St. Louis entered the second game of a three game series at Busch Stadium against the Miami Marlins. In addition, they were looking for their 75th win in 116 games, something which has not happened since the 2004 season.
And that’s exactly what happened on Saturday night.
Backed by two big home runs and another quality pitching performance, the Cardinals defeated the Marlins 6-2, winning yet another series at home, as well as notching their 75th win of the 2015 season.
For game two, the starters were John Lackey (9-7, 2.91) and Brad Hand (2-2, 4.29).
In the bottom of the first inning, Randal Grichuk kept his strong rookie campaign going, hitting a solo home run to left field, giving the Cardinals an early 1-0 lead. The Marlins tied it up at 1-1 when Lackey balked home Marcell Ozuna in the top of the second.
But on this night, it was one of the few mistakes that Lackey would make, although, in the early goings of the game, one issue was the amount of base-runners that he allowed on base.
St. Louis soon after broke the tie in the bottom of the second inning.
It began when Stephen Piscotty hit a double, and later advanced to third base on a throwing error. Kolten Wong then grounded out, to help score Piscotty to give the Cardinals the lead. However, they weren’t done there. After Mark Reynolds doubled, Lackey contributed to the cause by hitting an RBI-single that scored Reynolds to make it 3-1 Cardinals.
Miami was able to add another run to cut the lead to 3-2 in the sixth when Justin Bour hit a solo home run. But Reynolds hit a three-run home in the bottom of the sixth to make it 6-2 Cardinals, and put the game out of reach for the Marlins.
Lackey pitched 8 1/3 innings, the second night in a row a Cardinals’ starter has done so, and Steve Cishek finished it for St. Louis, as they won 6-2. Lackey improves to 10-7, while Hand drops to 2-3. The home run hit by Reynolds was his 10th, and the one by Grichuk was his 15th. St. Louis is now 75-41, 19-8 since the All-Star break, and 44-17 at home.
Tomorrow, Carlo Martinez gets the start.
(AP Photo/Bill Boyce)
