The St. Louis Cardinals left Arizona feeling a little bit better about themselves
http://www.coltsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-braden-smith-jersey , thanks to a late-inning surge by the offense and another strong outing from
Miles Mikolas.
The Cardinals scored seven times in the seventh and eighth innings to beat Arizona 8-4 on Wednesday night. After coming to town on a four-game losing
streak and off a three-game sweep at the hands of Atlanta, St. Louis took two of
three from the first-place Diamondbacks.
Yadier Molina’s three-run homer on the first pitch from reliever Fernando Salas highlighted a five-run Cardinals seventh inning after Arizona had nursed a
2-1 lead through six in front of a sellout crowd of 44,072.
”Had some big hits today,” St. Louis manager Mike Matheny said. ”It allows those big five-run innings to happen. Wear the pitcher down, wear the defense
down. Then you have Yadi come in and do something special on the back end.”
Tommy Pham drove in three Cardinals runs with a double and two singles. Matt Carpenter doubled twice and singled with one RBI.
”Carp kind of set the tone. He got on base a lot,” Pham said. ”I think we had good at-bats. Even when the results weren’t there, we made guys throw pitches.
That’s key. If a guy is taking four or five plus pitches to get outs, that means
you are grinding as a hitter. When you put that together as a team, it wears out
pitching staffs.”
The Diamondbacks dropped to 1-5 on their homestand and lead the surging Los Angeles Dodgers by just a half-game in the NL West.
Mikolas (9-3) gave up two runs and seven hits, walked four and struck out three.
Arizona reliever Yoshihisa Hirano (2-1) had his franchise-record streak of 26 games without allowing a run end when Yairo Munoz homered to lead off the
seventh. Hirano gave up four runs, one earned, on three hits in two-thirds of an
inning for his first loss since coming to the major leagues from Japan this
season.
”Yoshi’s human,” Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said. ”That’s what it means
Youth Orlando Brown Jr. Jersey , right? And he’s absolutely spoiled us. He’s been a slam-dunk reliever and he made a really tough game look easy for a
long time.”
After Munoz’s homer, shortstop Ketel Marte booted pinch-hitter Tyler O’Neill’s grounder for an error. With one out and O’Neill on second, Pham
singled to center to put the Cardinals up 3-2. Center fielder Jarrod Dyson left
the game with discomfort in his right groin area, Lovullo said.
Salas relieved Hirano and gave up the big hit to Molina, who homered twice in the series.
”It was like two totally different games,” Lovullo said. ”The first six innings were exactly the way you’d like to see guys go out and execute and do
their job, and then the final three innings unfortunately we couldn’t execute in
a lot of key areas.”
HARD-LUCK LEFTY
Arizona starter Patrick Corbin allowed one run and six hits in six innings, his third straight strong outing without a decision. He’s given up two runs in
19 innings during those three starts.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Cardinals: Paul DeJong (broken left hand) homered and doubled and played shortstop all nine innings Tuesday night in his fourth rehab game for Triple-A
Memphis. Matheny said DeJong would not be activated Thursday in San Francisco
but could be at some time during the four-game series.
Diamondbacks: Right-handed reliever Randall Delgado (left oblique strain) was scheduled to make another rehab appearance for Triple-A Reno and is expected to
be activated Thursday, the end of his rehab assignment. … OF Steven Souza Jr.
(strained right pectoral) had Wednesday off in his rehab assignment with Reno
after homering twice for the Aces on Tuesday night. Souza has three homers in
his last two rehab games.
UP NEXT
Cardinals: Head to San Francisco for four games against the Giants. RHP Luke Weaver (4-7, 5.16 ERA) starts for St. Louis in Thursday night’s opener. Johnny
Cueto (3-0, 0.84) comes off the disabled list to pitch for the Giants.
Diamondbacks: RHP Shelby Miller (0-2, 11.42), following two rough starts in his return from Tommy John surgery
Youth Kenny Young Jersey , takes the mound Thursday night in the opener of a four-game home series against San Diego. LHP Eric Lauer (3-5, 5.08) goes
for the Padres.
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Thursday night’s game between the Oakland Athletics and the Chicago White Sox has been postponed because of rain.
The postponement is the 40th in the major leagues this season, one more than last year and the most in at least the past six years.
The game will be made up on Friday as part of a straight doubleheader beginning at 3:10 p.m. CDT. The second game will start at 7:10 p.m., the time
for Friday’s regularly scheduled game, or 30 minutes after the conclusion of the
first game.
The White Sox announced right-hander James Shields (2-8, 4.63 ERA) will start the first game on Friday, with righty Lucas Giolito (4-7, 7.19) following in the
nightcap. Chicago has lost seven straight to match a season high and is a
season-low 25 games under .500.
Oakland will send left-hander Sean Manaea (6-6, 3.56) to the mound in the opener and start righty Chris Bassitt in (0-2, 2.45) in Game 2.
The Athletics are scheduled to play four games this weekend during their only visit to Chicago this season.
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