Worth the wait
A little rain never hurt nobody.
The Cardinals (49-43) responded from Sunday’s hideous loss to Chicago in impressive fashion, beating Washington (37-54) by a score of 4-2 to take game one of the series. St. Louis scored four unanswered runs to rally back from a 2-0 deficit.
Tuesday night’s game got off to an ominous start as first pitch was delayed two hours and 19 minutes. The delay lasted nearly as long as the game itself (2:21), but the Cardinal faithful were rewarded with a bounce back win by the boys.
The Nationals small balled their way to a 2-0 lead in the top of the third inning. James Wood singled to right field to put the Nats on the board, and then Luis Garcia Jr. drove in a second run off of a fielder’s choice to make the fans who did wait out the rain a little uneasy.
Those worries were put to rest almost immediately, as the Cards responded with three runs in the home half of the inning. Victor Scott got the rally going with a leadoff ground rule double, and then Brendan Donovan did All-Star things with a game-tying two-run to right field.
Masyn Winn kept the rally going with a single, and Alec Burleson broke the tie with an RBI double to right field.
Working with a lead, Sonny Gray pitched a perfect fourth and fifth inning before handing the ball to Steven Matz.Gray wasn’t overly taxed Tuesday night, and was pulled after five innings and just 70 pitches. His final line reads: 5 IP, 5 hits, 2 ER, 6 Ks/1 BB, and his record improves to 9-3.
Despite coming out of the pen with a lead, Matz ran into trouble in the sixth. Matz gave up a single to lead off the frame to Garcia Jr., but got Nathaniel Lowe to hit into a fielder’s choice that erased Garcia Jr. Matz then walked Josh Bell to bring the go-ahead run to the plate, but he got Brady House to ground into an inning-ending 5-4-3 double play.
Washington had its chance to either tie or take the lead in the top of the sixth, but failed. to capitalize. St. Louis, however, wouldn’t waste its chance to build upon its lead in the bottom of the frame. Clearly sensing a 3-2 lead wasn’t going to cut it, Lars Nootbaar launched his 12th home run of 2025 to right field and upped the Cardinal lead to 4-2.
Phil Maton pitched a perfect seventh inning, and JoJo Romero struck out two in the eighth. Romero handed the ball to Ryan Helsley in the ninth and his inning was almost a carbon copy of Matz (not a compliment!).
Helsley walked Bell to start off the ninth, but got back-to-back put outs in centerfield to put the Nationals down to their final out. Washington wouldn’t go quietly, however, and Adams singled off a first-pitch slider to bring the go-ahead run to the plate. But, as the old adage goes, “bend but don’t break” and that’s what Helsley did: he got Jacob Young to ground into a game-ending fielder’s choice, picked up his 18th save of the season, and everyone got to go home happy and hopefully everyone had dried off from the rain earlier in the evening.
St. Louis and Washington will be back at it tomorrow evening, with first pitch scheduled for 6:45. Andre Pallante is scheduled to pitch opposite of McKenze Gore.