Cardinals Waste Mathews’ Solid Start, Fall to Giants 2-1

THE CARDINAL CHRONICLE
Cardinals Waste Mathews’ Solid Start, Fall to Giants 2-1
St. Louis, MO
By Ray Mileur

Quinn Mathews gave the St. Louis Cardinals enough.

The offense did not.

Mathews allowed two solo home runs in the first two innings, then settled in and gave St. Louis six competitive frames Tuesday night at Oracle Park. That should have kept the Cardinals in position to win.

Instead, St. Louis spent most of the night searching for one big hit and never found enough offense in a 2-1 loss to the San Francisco Giants.

The loss dropped the Cardinals to 72-74 and continued a frustrating pattern on the road trip. St. Louis has played enough good baseball to stay interesting, but not enough clean, complete baseball to gain real ground.

Tuesday night was a pitcher’s loss.

Mathews took the ball after a strong outing at Dodger Stadium and once again looked like a young starter who belongs in the conversation. The Giants got him early, but they did not get much after that.

Bryce Eldridge opened the scoring in the bottom of the first, driving a solo home run to left-center field to give San Francisco a 1-0 lead. Christian Koss followed with another solo home run in the second, sending a fly ball over the wall in left and pushing the Giants ahead, 2-0.

That was it.

Two swings.

Two runs.

And against a Cardinals lineup that could not solve Landen Roupp early, that was enough.

Mathews could have let the game get away from him after the two early home runs. He did not. The rookie left-hander settled down, worked through six innings and kept the Cardinals within striking distance.

He finished with six innings, allowing two runs on five hits. He walked two and struck out four.

It was not a dominant line.

It was a winning line if the offense does its part.

The Cardinals simply could not do enough with it.

Roupp kept St. Louis quiet for six scoreless innings, allowing just two hits while walking four and striking out two. The walks gave the Cardinals chances, but they never turned them into the kind of inning that could change the game.

That was the frustration.

St. Louis had traffic. The Cardinals had opportunities. They had enough baserunners to make Roupp work. But they could not produce the hit that flipped the night.

That has been the line between winning and losing too often for this club.

The Cardinals were not blown out.

They were not outclassed.

They were one swing short.

Again.

Masyn Winn returned to the lineup, giving the Cardinals another regular back in the mix, but the offense never found rhythm. Iván Herrera, Alec Burleson, Jordan Walker, Leo Bernal, Nolan Gorman, Thomas Saggese and Nathan Church all gave St. Louis a lineup that looked capable of doing damage.

The damage never came.

The Giants did not add on after the second inning, and that should have opened the door for St. Louis. Mathews made sure of that. The bullpen followed by keeping the game close, giving the Cardinals chance after chance to get back into it.

But the score stayed 2-0 into the ninth.

By then, the Cardinals were down to their final chance.

They finally broke through against Joel Kuhnel. Nathan Church reached and Bryan Torres singled on a ground ball to right field, scoring Church and cutting the Giants’ lead to 2-1.

That brought some late life back into the game.

It did not bring enough.

The tying run never came home, and San Francisco closed out the one-run win.

For the Cardinals, this was the kind of loss that gets heavier because of where they are in the season. September does not leave much room for quiet bats and wasted starts. Every game matters. Every inning matters. Every missed chance matters.

This one had all of that.

Mathews did his job after the early damage. He gave up two solo home runs, but he did not let either turn into a crooked inning. He kept the Giants from building separation. He forced San Francisco to win with only two runs.

That should be enough for a team still trying to stay in the Wild Card picture.

It was not.

The Cardinals’ offense has had some loud nights lately. They scored 13 runs at Dodger Stadium. They scored eight the next night. They scored 10 in Colorado when Cooper Hjerpe made his debut. The young bats have made September more interesting, and there have been stretches where the lineup looked dangerous from top to bottom.

Tuesday was the other side of that.

The Cardinals had enough names in the lineup.

They did not have enough production.

That is the issue. The Cardinals are no longer in a part of the schedule where encouraging signs are enough by themselves. They need wins. They need series wins. They need to take advantage of games where the starter holds the opponent to two runs.

Mathews gave them that chance.

The lineup let it pass.

San Francisco did not need a big offensive night. Eldridge hit one out in the first. Koss hit one out in the second. Roupp and the bullpen handled the rest. That was the entire formula.

Simple.

Frustrating.

Effective.

The Cardinals can point to Mathews as a positive. That is fair. His development matters. His ability to settle in after early damage matters. His presence in the rotation gives St. Louis another young arm worth watching down the stretch.

But the standings do not care about development alone.

They care about results.

And Tuesday’s result was another one-run loss on a road trip where St. Louis has had chances to do more than simply hang around.

The Cardinals took two of three from the Dodgers, but missed a sweep in the ninth inning. They won a wild series in Colorado, but had to fight through Coors Field chaos to do it. They opened in San Francisco with an extra-inning loss, then followed it with another narrow defeat.

That is how a good road trip starts to feel unfinished.

The Cardinals are close enough in these games to make them sting.

They are not finishing enough of them to make the standings move.

Tuesday night was there for them. The pitching was there. The bullpen kept it there. The Giants did not run away with anything.

The Cardinals just did not hit enough.

That is the simplest way to say it.

Mathews gave St. Louis six strong innings after two early solo shots.

Torres gave the Cardinals a run in the ninth.

But the tying hit never came.

The Giants beat the Cardinals, 2-1.

And St. Louis let another winnable game slip away.

The Cardinal Chronicle
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