ST. LOUIS — Long before the torrential rains arrived, the Yankees succumbed to a deluge.
The Cardinals, carried aloft by a gust of their own power and puffs of mistakes from their courteous visitors, swamped the club from the Bronx with innings of five runs and four runs and ran away with an 11-4 victory Saturday evening at Busch Stadium in Game 1 of what’s become a single-ticket doubleheader. As reliever James Naile tried to complete his two innings a delay of 2 hours, 19 minutes for thunderstorms and another delay of 18 minutes interrupted the ending of Game 1.
Another delay threatened as the ninth inning lingered and lingered due to walks issued by Cardinals reliever Drew VerHagen and a rain-soaked mound he pointed to for help getting traction.
The Yankees tagged VerHagen with three runs, including a 446-foot homer through the latest sheets of rain, to prolong the inevitable.
Eventually Saturday, between the two scheduled games, the Cardinals reached the midpoint of the regular season — 81 games down, 81 games to go — and they started the day 10 games back in the division.
They are 34-47.
They’ve been worse. They’ve been better.
They’ve been worse again.
They’ve been one of the biggest disappointments in the majors, and yet a Game 1 win assured them they wouldn’t fall into the chasm of an 11-game deficit and had a chance this weekend to win their third three-game series in their past four.
They also opened the doors for all to see, weather permitting. Officials at Busch Stadium elected to open the ballpark for the ending of Game 1 and all of the scheduled Game 2 to anyone who had tickets to either game.
If a fan had a ticket from Game 1 and wanted to stay for the double feature, find an open seat. If a fan had a ticket to Game 2 and wanted to see a little bonus baseball, catch the end of Game 1.
All those early birds for the night game saw were the Cardinals completing a romp against the Yankees. Jack Flaherty returned to the rotation with six scoreless innings, scattering five hits and keeping the Yankees from generating much of any offense. Flaherty (5-5) was out of the game before the storms and the Yankees mustered an unearned run.
What Flaherty did not allow the Yankees, the Cardinals got from their offense.
The Cardinals sent at least nine batters to the plate in the third and the fifth innings. Eight of the nine spots in the order scored at least a run.
Eight of the nine spots in the order produced at least one hit.
Seven of the nine starters reached base at least twice.
Nolan Gorman reached base three times and drilled his 16th home run of the season, lifting him to 49 RBIs. Paul Goldschmidt hit his 15th homer and advanced to 45 RBIs. Tommy Edman and Andrew Knizner, batting Nos. 8 and 9 in the lineup, were 4 for 6 through five innings with four runs scored and three RBIs. Knizner hit a two-run double in the fifth, advanced to third on a wild pitch, and scored on a sacrifice fly for the Cardinals’ 11th run.
After the second rain delay of Game 1, the Yankees put third baseman Josh Donaldson — whose Twitter address, no kidding, is @BringerOfRain20 — on the mound for the bottom of the eighth inning.
Goldy strike! Five-run jackpot in third
The Cardinals’ opening rally featured a mix of power and opportunity and democracy.
Everybody got involved.
The bottom of the lineup, Edman and Knizner, sparked the inning with back-to-back singles before Yankees starter Luis Severino could get an out. Goldschmidt made the most of the teammates on base with a laser over the right-field wall for his 15th home run of the season and his first with more than one runner on base since late 2022. Goldschmidt’s three-run bolt gave the Cardinals a 3-0 lead, but the Yankees weren’t content with the Cardinals only scoring that many.
Severino walked the next batter, Gorman.
Gorman reached second safely on an error.
He took third on a fly ball to right that also allowed Nolan Arenado to go from first to second. Instead of having two outs or being out of the inning with a double play, the Yankees were in the muck — one out and two runners in scoring position.
The Cardinals happily accepted the invitation.
The Nolans scored on two-out singles from Alec Burleson and Paul DeJong to push the lead out to five runs. The Cardinals sent 10 batters to the plate during the five-run third inning. Five hits amplified one walk and one error into five runs and a lead the Yankees never threatened.
Flaherty delivers strong hip check
When last the Cardinals expected to have Flaherty on the mound, they were across the Atlantic, scripting their rotation and moving other arms around to assure that he got a start in the finale of the London Series against the Cubs.
And then he felt limited movement in his hip.
“If he pitched in London, it would have been pitching through it,” manager Oliver Marmol explained. “He felt like it calmed down for him to not have to worry about it and go out there pitch. It’s more of a tolerance thing.”
Similar to the soreness that delayed his first appearance of spring training, Flaherty’s hip “tightened” on him upon landing in the United Kingdom and that left him feeling less explosive, less than his best off the mound. The Cardinals scratched him from that start, delayed his next start and held him on the roster in hopes that his absence would not exceed the 10 days. He took a stride this past week — and got to check the hip Saturday.
Flaherty quickly appeared better for the rest.
With help from a double play started by Tommy Edman with a lunging catch in center field, Flaherty began the game by getting eight outs from the first eight batters. Two times through the Yankees’ order and he had 15 outs from 18 batters. The Yankees once went a 10-batter stretch with only two balls leaving the infield against Flaherty.
By the time he finished six scoreless innings, Flaherty had coaxed the Yankees into 11 swings-and-misses, struck out four, and coaxed two double plays. There was the one Edman pulled off with a catch in center and throw to double-up the runner at first, and there was the traditional 5-4-3 started by Arenado, back at third after a brief break to calm a sore back.
The Yankees got one runner as far as second base against Flaherty.
For the Cardinals’ right-hander, the quality start Saturday ended a run of duds. In his previous two starts he allowed 12 runs and 20 hits in 10 2/3 innings. He got a win in his most recent start because the Cardinals’ offense emerged from a hole he helped dig. For the second time in the past month Flaherty pitched six scoreless in a start, and the quality start was his fifth of the season in 16 starts.
Walker’s hit streak ends
Rookie Jordan Walker’s hitting streak of 17 games came to an end in the eighth inning when he grounded out against Donaldson. The streak was Walker’s second already this season of at least a dozen games, all within his first 40 games in the majors. Walker’s was the longest active hitting streak at that time of his 0-for-5 Saturday afternoon.
