St. Louis Rallies to Beat Chicago 8-7

Cards hold on in a game that had a little bit of everything

Two games against the division leading Chicago (46-33) have resulted in two wins for the Cardinals (44-36) as St. Louis overcame an early three-run deficit to beat the Cubs 8-7 Tuesday night.

Offense was on full display Tuesday night as Chicago and St. Louis combined for 23 hits and five home runs; the Cardinals also got doubles from Pedro Pagés and Masyn Winn.

St. Louis got off to an innocuous start offensively, going 1-2-3 in the first, but the first big boom came in the second. Stop me when you’ve heard this one before, but St. Louis took Chicago pitching deep for a two-run home run, this one courtesy of Lars Nootbaar.

Personally I think that’s great coaching by Oli to keep calling the “two-run home run” play from last night. If anything I’d run it more.

Chicago wouldn’t wait long to respond, however. Not only did they tie things up in the top of the third, but they pushed five runs across to grab an early 5-2 lead. Nico Hoerner and Matt Shaw led off the inning with back-to-back bloop singles, and then Ian Happ drew a one-out walk to load the bases. Kyle Tucker got Chicago on the board with a game-tying base hit to right field, and then Seiya Suzuki took Michael McGreevy deep to left field for a three-run shot. The home run was Suzuki’s 21st of the season, which ties a career-high for him.

St. Louis wouldn’t be deterred. The Cards responded in the bottom of the inning with, wait for it…a two-run home run! This time it was Masyn Winn showing off some power and Winn’s seventh bomb of 2025 cut Chicago’s lead down to one run.

Reenergized by his offense picking him up, McGreevy bounced back from a rough third inning with a 1-2-3 fourth, and the Cardinals exploded in the home half of the inning.

Nolan Gorman led off the bottom of the fourth with a game-tying blast, and this thing was crushed: 432 feet, 106 off the bat, and a 31 degree launch angle.

The fun didn’t stop there for St. Louis. Pagés followed Gorman’s home run with a double to left field, and Victor Scott drew a walk to get aboard. Two batters later, Pagés and Scott were brought home when Winn doubled down the left field line to give St. Louis a 7-5 lead.

Winn not only helped St. Louis regain the lead, but he followed it up with the play of the game. Alec Burleson hit a deep fly ball to centerfield that Pete Crow-Armstrong caught at the wall, but PCA clearly had no idea how many outs there were. PCA was either feeling himself a little bit, or is unable to count to three (or both!), all the while Winn tagged up from second and came all the way home to up St. Louis’ lead to 8-5. That one miscue by PCA and the heads up base running by Winn ended up mattering a hell of a lot because otherwise this game reaches extra innings.

Offensively that’s about where the fun stopped for St. Louis because the Cardinals would only manage two more base runners the rest of the game. That put the onus on the Cardinal pitching and defense to hold onto the lead. Things got dicey late, but St. Louis was able to hang on.

The Cubs struck back in the top of the sixth inning Hoerner took Steven Matz deep to left field to make it an 8-7 game, but give Matz and the boys credit: they bent but they didn’t break.

JoJo Romero took the mound in the seventh inning and let two aboard but got bailed out by PCA inexplicably bunting with runners on the corners and one out. Romero was lifted for Phil Maton, and Maton got Dansby Swanson to pop out to Burleson, who went into the net in foul territory to end the Chicago threat.

In the eighth inning, Chicago once again had the tying run in scoring position, but Maton was able to get a strike out and a ground out to keep the Cubs at bay, and he handed the ball to Ryan Helsley in the ninth.

The ninth started off easily enough for Helsley, who got Ian Happ to groundout to first to start the inning. Then Tucker singled to get the tying run aboard, and two batters later PCA moved Tucker to third base after Crow-Armstrong singled to center. Crow-Armstrong then stole second to get the go-ahead run in scoring position, but Swanson hit a ground ball to Nolan Arenado to end the game. It wasn’t a routine 5-3 putout however as Arenado and Crow-Armstrong nearly collided, but Nado bare-handed the ball, fired across the diamond and got Swanson by maybe a step or two.

Don’t look now, but St. Louis is now 2.5 games behind the Cubs in the NL Central and are currently tied for second with Milwaukee at 44-36. The Cards will try to claim the series tomorrow at 6:45, with Erick Fedde going up against Matthew Boyd.