ATLANTA – A description that manager Mike Shildt and other members of the Cardinals have turned to a few times this past month to describe their success, which can shift from mercurial to molasses, is how a baseball season tends to “ebb and flow,” “ebb and flow.”
They usually mean through the weeks.
They got both on Father’s Day at Truist Park.
The flow from the afternoon game gave way to the ebb of the evening game’s starter as the Cardinals and Atlanta split a doubleheader that unified what can feel like the split nature of the Cardinals’ offense. Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado both homered and combined for seven RBIs in the 9-1 victory in Game 1. In Game 2, Braves lefty Drew Smyly held the Cardinals to no hits through 5 2/3 innings to propel the Braves to a 1-0 victory. It was the second time in the four-game series that the Cardinals were shutout, and other than the nine runs in the first game Sunday they scored a grand total of one run in the other three games.
Ronald Acuna Jr. provided the run in the evening game with the 100th home run of his career. He is the sixth-fastest in MLB history to reach 100.
The Braves have been shutout three times in the past eight days, and in that same span they’ve scored two or fewer runs in five games.
If Sunday was a peek at the offense they could be with Goldschmidt and Arenado both revving at the same time, it was also a reminder of the offense they’ve been. Smyly held them scoreless through his 5 2/3 innings and he had five of the eight strikeouts Atlanta’s pitchers got from the Cardinals. Will Smith closed the game for his 13th save.
Born from necessity a year as Major League Baseball tried to play a shortened season through the headwinds of a pandemic, doubleheaders with seven-inning games carried into this year and appear to have staying power.
Defining the stats from them is still a work in progress.
With his seven sterling innings in Game 1, Wainwright qualified for a complete game – the 26th of his career and second already this season. But as he took a no-hitter into the sixth inning against the top of the Cardinals’ order, Drew Smyly had no chance of throwing a no-hitter even if he didn’t allow a hit. By rule, his complete game would not qualify as a no-hitter, by baseball standards, because it did not last at least nine innings.
The closest the Cardinals came in the early innings of Smyly’s start was in the fourth. The lefty invited trouble and his defense nixed it.
Smyly walked two batters, and those walks bookended a laser-beam by Arenado that seemed headed for his second double of the day. Braves third baseman Austin Riley jumped and snared the liner for an out. The inning ended with two runners stranded – including the only Cardinal to reach second base in the first five innings of the game. When the top of the lineup came back around to face Smyly in the sixth inning, Rile again snatched a potential hit with his quick hands on a hard grounder from Tommy Edman.
Of the first 20 Cardinals he faced, only five got the ball out of the infield.
And his run without allowing a hit ended the way it continued – without a ball leaving the infield. Goldschmidt outran a wide throw for an infield single in the sixth inning on the last pitch Smyly threw. It was the second time in the series that Goldschmidt snapped a no-hit game in the late innings. He did so Thursday against Charlie Morton.
With Smyly out of the game, Atlanta’s first reliever in, Luke Jackson, faced Arenado. The Cardinals’ third baseman pulled a hard grounder toward third that ricocheted off the fielder and into an infield single. That put the tying run in scoring position for Tyler O’Neill.
He struck out.
On the heels of Wainwright’s seven innings, lefty Kwang Hyun Kim had some of his finest innings for the Cardinals so far this season. He sidestepped a leadoff walk in the first inning, skipped around a leadoff single in the second inning, and then did the same in the fourth. Wainwright’s complete game, a day off Monday, and the recent lack of work for the late-inning relievers allowed the Cardinals to be aggressive going to their bullpen in the second game of the doubleheader.
When Kim’s spot in the order came up in the fifth inning, Shildt went to a pinch-hitter to turn the lineup over, to spark something.
Smyly dispatched Lane Thomas quickly.
Ryan Helsley and Genesis Cabrera handled the fifth and sixth to carry the one-run into the seventh and final inning. A snazzy play by catcher Andrew Knizner around the feet of the home plate umpire ended the sixth inning. Riley swung and missed at a pitch from Cabrera that got past Knizner and caromed off the backstop right to the feet of the ump. Knizner spun around, grabbed the ball, spun again, and had to throw at a tough angle to first base to assure the out.
