Cardinals Waste Leahy’s Gem, Fall to the D-Backs in Another One-Run Loss
The Cardinal Chronicle
Cardinals Waste Leahy’s Gem, Fall to Diamondbacks in Another One-Run Loss
St. Louis, MO
By Ray Mileur
The St. Louis Cardinals had this one lined up.
They had the starting pitching. They had a scoreless game late. They had Kyle Leahy delivering one of the best starts of his young career. They had a chance to take the first two games of a four-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Busch Stadium.
Then the ninth inning happened.
Arizona scored four runs in the top of the ninth, and the Cardinals’ rally in the bottom half came up one run short in a 4-3 loss Tuesday night. It was another one-run game, another late-game gut punch, and another reminder that clean baseball has to be played all the way through the final out.
This one hurt because it was there.
Leahy gave the Cardinals everything they could have asked for. The right-hander worked 6 1/3 scoreless innings, setting a career high for length, and kept Arizona off the board despite early traffic. He pitched out of jams, made pitches with runners in scoring position, and gave St. Louis a chance to win a game that looked like it might come down to one swing.
For most of the night, both starters controlled the tempo.
Eduardo Rodriguez was just as difficult on the other side. The Cardinals had very little going early, and when they did finally create chances, they could not cash them in. That became the difference long before the scoreboard changed.
Arizona threatened in the first when Ketel Marte opened the game with a double and moved to third with one out. Leahy did not blink. He struck out Corbin Carroll and got Gabriel Moreno to fly out, keeping the game scoreless.
The Diamondbacks threatened again in the third after a leadoff ground-rule double put another runner in scoring position. Again, Leahy made the pitches he needed. Arizona left the runner stranded, and the game remained scoreless.
The Cardinals’ offense took longer to wake up.
St. Louis did not record its first hit until the fourth, when Jordan Walker singled with one out. Lars Nootbaar followed with a single of his own, giving the Cardinals their first real scoring chance. But Nelson Velázquez struck out, and José Fermín lined out to center to end the inning.
That was the first missed opportunity.
The biggest came in the sixth.
Iván Herrera drew a one-out walk, Walker singled to right for his second hit of the night, and Nootbaar walked to load the bases. The Cardinals had the moment they wanted. Busch Stadium had a chance to finally break open.
Instead, the inning collapsed.
Velázquez popped the ball into short left field. Arizona’s Geraldo Perdomo made the catch while colliding with outfielder Tommy Troy. Herrera tagged from third and tried to score on the confusion, but he was thrown out at the plate. The Cardinals had loaded the bases with one out and came away with nothing.
That was the kind of inning that comes back to haunt a team.
It did.
Leahy returned for the seventh and recorded one more out before Max Rajcic entered to face Nolan Arenado. Rajcic did his job. He got Arenado to ground out and then escaped the inning, preserving the scoreless tie. He worked through the eighth as well, and the Cardinals still had a chance to win it late.
But the offense remained quiet.
St. Louis stranded Blaze Jordan at second in the seventh. The Cardinals did nothing in the eighth. A game that had been there for the taking stayed 0-0 into the ninth.
Then everything came apart.
Matt Svanson entered in the top of the ninth and struck out Carroll to open the inning. But Gabriel Moreno reached when a fly ball to right became trouble, and suddenly Arizona had life. Moreno moved into scoring position on a wild pitch. Pavin Smith walked, and Arenado stepped in with a chance to damage his former club.
He did.
Arenado turned on a 3-2 fastball and drove it into the corner, scoring Moreno and giving Arizona a 1-0 lead. It was the swing that finally broke the scoreless tie, and it came from the player Cardinals fans had welcomed back to Busch Stadium just one night earlier.
The inning got worse from there.
Lourdes Gurriel Jr. followed with a single to center, scoring two more runs and making it 3-0. Gordon Graceffo entered and could not completely stop the slide. Arizona loaded the bases, and a passed ball allowed another run to score, stretching the lead to 4-0.
In a game where runs had been nearly impossible to find for eight innings, the Diamondbacks suddenly had four.
The Cardinals, to their credit, did not disappear.
Nootbaar opened the bottom of the ninth with a double. Fermín followed with a single, and Alec Burleson delivered a double to bring home St. Louis’ first run. That cut the deficit to 4-1 and finally gave the Cardinals life.
Blaze Jordan then lifted a sacrifice fly to score Fermín and make it 4-2. Jimmy Crooks followed with a single to right, scoring Burleson and cutting Arizona’s lead to 4-3.
Suddenly, the tying run was on base. The potential winning run was at the plate. Busch Stadium had gone from quiet frustration to full attention in a matter of minutes.
JJ Wetherholt came up with a chance to extend the rally, but Arizona went to left-hander Brandyn Garcia, and Wetherholt struck out to end the game.
The rally was real.
It was not enough.
That is the hard part about this loss. The Cardinals showed fight in the ninth, but the game was not lost only in the ninth. It was lost in the missed chances before that. It was lost when the bases-loaded opportunity in the sixth turned into a zero. It was lost when Leahy’s strong start received no support. It was lost when the Cardinals could not turn traffic into runs until they were already down four.
Leahy deserved better.
He gave St. Louis 6 1/3 scoreless innings and left the game with the Cardinals still very much in position to win. He did what a starter is supposed to do. He gave length, kept the opponent quiet, and handed the game to the bullpen.
The bullpen could not finish it.
Svanson took the loss after the ninth inning unraveled. Graceffo was asked to limit the damage but could not keep the fourth run from crossing. In a one-run loss, that extra run mattered.
Everything mattered.
Walker was one of the offensive bright spots, finishing with two hits. Nootbaar reached multiple times and helped start the ninth-inning rally. Burleson drove in a run with his ninth-inning double. Jordan added a sacrifice fly. Crooks delivered the RBI single that pulled the Cardinals within one.
But for eight innings, the Cardinals could not score.
That is not a small detail.
St. Louis finished with three runs, all in the ninth. Arizona finished with four runs, all in the ninth. The difference was the Diamondbacks landed the bigger blow first, and the Cardinals ran out of outs trying to answer.
The loss dropped the Cardinals to 42-35 and evened the series at one game apiece. After Monday night’s 3-2 win behind Andre Pallante, Tuesday gave St. Louis a chance to put Arizona on its heels. Instead, the Diamondbacks stole back momentum and turned what looked like a Cardinals pitching win into another painful one-run loss.
There are no moral victories in the standings.
But there are lessons.
Leahy’s outing was a major positive. He looked composed, efficient, and more than capable of handling a quality lineup. That matters for a Cardinals rotation still searching for stability behind the more established arms.
But the rest of the night showed the same old warning signs.
Missed chances. Late-inning execution. Bullpen stress. One extra run allowed. One rally left unfinished.
Those are the margins in one-run baseball.
Tuesday night, the Cardinals ended up on the wrong side of them.
The Cardinal Chronicle, in association with Gateway Sports & MiLB Today
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Photo Credit: Kyle Leahy, St. Louis Cardinals | MLB