Diamondbacks Bury Cardinals Late, Win Makeup Game 10-6

THE CARDINAL CHRONICLE
Diamondbacks Bury Cardinals Late, Win Makeup Game 10-6
St. Louis, MO
By Ray Mileur

The St. Louis Cardinals got the first swing.

The Arizona Diamondbacks landed the heavier ones.

In a makeup game squeezed into what had originally been a mutual off day, the Cardinals jumped ahead early Thursday evening at Busch Stadium, but could not hold the lead and could not slow Arizona’s offense late in a 10-6 loss to the Diamondbacks.

This one started with promise.

It ended with another reminder of how quickly a game can get away when a pitching staff cannot stop traffic.

The Cardinals scored twice in the bottom of the first inning and had a chance to do more. JJ Wetherholt opened the inning with an infield single, and Jordan Walker followed with a double to deep center field, bringing Wetherholt home and giving St. Louis a 1-0 lead.

Alec Burleson kept the inning moving with an infield single, putting runners on the corners. Lars Nootbaar then reached on an infield single of his own, scoring Walker and pushing the Cardinals ahead 2-0.

At that point, Busch Stadium had life.

The Cardinals had four hits before Arizona starter Brandon Pfaadt recorded two outs. Masyn Winn flied out to deep center, moving the runners up, and José Fermín walked to load the bases. St. Louis had a chance to turn the first inning into something much bigger.

That chance slipped away.

Nathan Church struck out swinging, and Blaze Jordan flied out to right to end the inning.

The Cardinals had the lead.

They also left the door open.

That mattered.

Michael McGreevy worked around trouble in the first inning, helped by a slick double play after Geraldo Perdomo walked and Gabriel Moreno singled. Max Kepler grounded into the pitcher-to-shortstop-to-first double play, ending the inning and keeping Arizona off the board.

For a couple of innings, it looked like McGreevy might settle in and make the early lead stand.

He worked a clean second and escaped the third after Tyler Locklear doubled and Perdomo walked. McGreevy struck out Ryan Waldschmidt and Corbin Carroll, then got Moreno to ground out to second.

The fourth inning changed the game.

Kepler opened the inning with a walk. Adrian Del Castillo followed with a double to deep right, putting runners at second and third. Tim Tawa lifted a sacrifice fly to center, scoring Kepler and cutting the Cardinals’ lead to 2-1.

McGreevy got Ildemaro Vargas to ground out, and he was one out away from escaping with the lead.

Then Locklear turned the game around.

Locklear drove a two-run home run to left field, scoring Del Castillo and putting Arizona ahead 3-2. It was the swing that flipped the game from a Cardinals lead into a Diamondbacks advantage, and St. Louis never got back in front.

Arizona added another run in the fifth when Carroll tripled to deep right-center and Moreno brought him home with a sacrifice fly to left. Just like that, the Cardinals’ 2-0 lead had become a 4-2 deficit.

The troubling part for St. Louis was that the offense went quiet after the first.

After opening the game with four hits and two runs, the Cardinals did not build on it. Burleson doubled in the third and Winn walked, but Fermín flied out and Church fouled out. Jimmy Crooks singled in the fourth, but Wetherholt grounded into a double play. Fermín singled in the sixth and moved to second on Church’s groundout, but Jordan flied out to center.

There was traffic.

There was no finish.

That was the theme.

Pfaadt settled in after the rough first inning and gave Arizona six innings, allowing two runs on seven hits while walking two and striking out one. He was not overpowering, but he stopped the Cardinals from turning the early pressure into a full-blown offensive night.

That was enough because Arizona’s lineup kept grinding.

McGreevy’s final line was not the kind of line the Cardinals needed in this spot. He worked 6 1/3 innings, allowing four runs on seven hits, walking three and striking out three. The start had competitive stretches, but the walks and the two big extra-base hits changed the tone.

The Cardinals had been leaning on McGreevy for stability.

Thursday, he kept them in the game for a while, but not in control of it.

The bullpen did not hold it there.

Justin Bruihl entered in the seventh and finished that inning cleanly, but the eighth became the inning that broke the game open.

Moreno opened the eighth with a double to left-center. Kepler grounded out, but Del Castillo singled to shallow left-center, scoring Moreno and making it 5-2. Matt Svanson replaced Bruihl and immediately walked Tawa after Del Castillo stole second.

Vargas singled to left, loading the bases.

Locklear singled to center, scoring Del Castillo and pushing the lead to 6-2. Nolan Arenado, facing his former club again, came off the bench and singled to right, scoring Tawa and making it 7-2.

The inning kept rolling.

Carroll lifted a sacrifice fly to left, scoring Vargas. Perdomo walked to reload the bases, and Moreno singled to right, scoring Locklear and stretching Arizona’s lead to 9-2.

That was the knockout inning.

Five runs. Six hits. Too much traffic. Too many pitches. Too many Cardinals relievers trying to survive instead of shutting the inning down.

Against Arizona, that is dangerous.

Against any club in the Wild Card race, that is unacceptable.

The Diamondbacks added one more in the ninth, again with Arenado in the middle of it. Del Castillo singled, Vargas singled, and Arenado delivered another RBI single, scoring Del Castillo and pushing Arizona’s lead to 10-2.

The Cardinals made a late push in the bottom of the ninth, scoring four times to make the final score more respectable, but the shape of the game had already been decided. The late rally changed the margin. It did not change the story.

The game was lost long before the final out.

It was lost when the Cardinals could not add on after a promising first inning.

It was lost when Locklear turned a 2-1 Cardinals lead into a 3-2 Arizona advantage with one swing in the fourth.

It was lost when the Diamondbacks buried the game under a five-run eighth.

Arizona finished with 10 runs and 16 hits. Locklear was a problem all night, doubling, homering and driving in three. Moreno had multiple hits and drove in two. Del Castillo reached and scored. Vargas had key traffic-setting hits. Carroll tripled, drove in a run with a sacrifice fly and helped keep pressure on the Cardinals. Arenado came off the bench and drove in two runs against his former club.

That last part will sting a little extra.

It usually does.

For St. Louis, the early offense was encouraging, but only briefly. Wetherholt started the first-inning rally. Walker drove in the first run with a double. Burleson had multiple hard-contact moments, including a double. Nootbaar drove in a run with an infield single. Fermín reached and singled. Crooks added a hit.

But after the first inning, there was not enough.

The Cardinals had chances and failed to cash them in. They put runners in scoring position and left them there. They had a chance to make Pfaadt uncomfortable early and let him off the hook. Once Arizona took control, the Cardinals could not answer until the game had already tilted too far.

That has become a familiar frustration.

The Cardinals have shown they can still fight. They have shown they can still score late. They have shown flashes of the offense that looked dangerous in Atlanta and Chicago earlier this month.

But flashes are not enough.

Not in late July.

Not in games against teams they are battling in the National League postseason picture.

Not when every missed chance can show up later in the standings.

This was not just another loss. It was a standalone makeup game against a direct Wild Card competitor. The Diamondbacks came into St. Louis for one game, took control late and left with the win. The Cardinals had a chance to protect their home field, build off Wednesday’s 1-0 win in Anaheim, and create a little momentum heading into the weekend series with Cincinnati.

Instead, they gave the momentum right back.

The pitching remains the larger concern.

The Cardinals allowed 10 runs on 16 hits. They walked five. The bullpen gave up six runs over the final few innings. Svanson was hit hard in the eighth. Graceffo gave up the ninth-inning run. Bruihl could not stop the first wave of the rally. Once Arizona started stacking at-bats, the Cardinals did not have an answer.

That is the part that has to concern the front office.

The Cardinals can talk about competing. They can talk about staying in the race. They can talk about the Wild Card path being open enough to keep pushing.

But games like this show the problem.

They need more pitching.

They need cleaner innings.

They need a bullpen that can stop a rally before it turns into a crooked number.

They need starters to give them not just innings, but winning innings.

McGreevy has been one of the more stable pieces of the rotation, but Thursday was not his sharpest night. He fought, he battled, and he got into the seventh. But Arizona made him pay for the walks and punished the mistakes. Then the bullpen turned a manageable deficit into a lopsided game.

The Cardinals made the final score closer in the ninth.

That cannot become the takeaway.

The takeaway is that St. Louis scored twice in the first inning, did not keep going, and then watched Arizona score 10 of the next 14 runs.

The Diamondbacks won the middle innings.

They won the late innings.

They won the game.

For the Cardinals, the road does not get easier. Cincinnati comes to town next, and the schedule keeps moving. There is no time to sit around and complain about a makeup-game loss, but there is also no way to pretend this one did not matter.

It did.

Arizona came into Busch Stadium and took a game the Cardinals badly needed.

St. Louis had the early lead.

The Diamondbacks took it back.

And by the time the Cardinals tried to answer late, the game had already gotten away.

The Cardinal Chronicle, in association with Gateway Sports & MiLB Today
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Photo Credit - Tyler Locklear, Arizona Diamondbacks | MLB