Last weekend’s series between the Cardinals and Pirates in St. Louis was all about the pitching.
Tonight, it was all about the offense in the series opener between the two teams at PNC Park.
After the Pirates took a 1-0 lead in the Bottom of the 1st on an unearned run off of Michael Wacha, the Cardinals answered that quickly in the Top of the 2nd.
Jhonny Peralta led off the Top of the 2nd with a solo home run to tie the game at 1. That started the night of some clutch home runs for St. Louis.
For the second straight game, Matt Carpenter was out of the starting lineup. He’s out for the rest of the series, resting in St. Louis due to extreme fatigue.
Though that wouldn’t stop the Cardinals, even with the tough lefty Francisco Liriano on the hill for the Pirates.
It was Matt Holliday who continued his hot hitting with runners in scoring position. In the Top of the 3rd with the game still tied at 1, Holliday delivered a three-run shot to give the Cardinals a 4-1 lead. With that home run, Holliday has reached base safely in all 27 games he’s played his season. He’s also batting .571 with RISP.
Michael Wacha didn’t exactly have his greatest stuff tonight, but his outing certainly gave the Cardinals a chance to win.
The big moment came in the Bottom of the 6th as the Pirates cut the score to 4-3, but that’s all they would get. Pittsburgh couldn’t convert on a prime opportunity, stranding runners on first and second to end the inning.
Wacha managed to get through six innings and was in line for the win. So the offense rewarded him with a couple of more insurance runs.
The Cardinals scored four runs in the Top of the 7th inning. Kolten Wong delivered a three-run shot to give the Cardinals an 8-3 lead. That turned out to be the game-winner.
For the second time this season, the Cardinals hit three home runs in a game, first since April 22nd at Washington. The two three home run games this season has already matched last year’s total.
With an 8-3 lead in the Bottom of the 7th, the 11 runs in the game had already matched the run total in last weekend’s series altogether.
The Pirates cut it to an 8-5 score at one points, which meant each team scored more runs from tonight than last weekend’s series combined.
Trevor Rosenthal came in to close the game and it ended on a double play line out. Rosenthal picked up his 11th save of the season.
The Cardinals won 8-5, having won 10 out of their last 11 games and improving to a season-high 15 games over .500 at 22-7. That’s also back-to-back wins without Matt Carpenter in the lineup for the first two times this season.
With the win tonight, Michael Wacha improves to 5-0 on the season, joining Zack Greinke and Felix Hernandez with a record of 5-0.
Carlos Martinez (3-0, 3.64 ERA) takes the hill against Vance Worley (2-2, 3.90 ERA) tomorrow night in Game 2 of the three-game series (6:05 p.m. CT). The Cardinals will be looking for their ninth consecutive series victory.
Of note:
-The Cardinals improved to 17-5 against the NL Central this season, and 7-1 during this stretch of 10 straight games within their division.
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