The Cardinals got two mighty swings from Paul Goldschmidt and, through nine innings, the two runs those swings produced proved to be too few as the slimmest possible lead slipped away in the ninth.
So abridged ball took over.
In the 10th inning, with the winning run gifted to the Cardinals by rule at second base, the Detroit Tigers sidestepped Goldschmidt by just putting him on base. Without a pitch thrown, the Cardinals had two runners on base, no outs, and were 180 feet from splitting the two-game interleague series. After a double steal, an intentional walk for Nolan Arenado loaded the bases. Already with 14 strikeouts in the game, the Cardinals didn’t get the ball in play to produce the winning run — until rookie Lars Nootbaar threaded a single to right.
Against Tigers’ reliever Michael Fulmer, Nootbaar pulled a two-out, bases-loaded single through Detroit’s infield for a 3-2 victory in extra innings Wednesday afternoon at Busch Stadium.
The Cardinals improved to 6-2 in baseball’s still new extra inning setting.
They got there when a one-run lead didn’t survive the ninth.
With two outs in the ninth, Detroit turned to Miguel Cabrera as a pinch-hitter against Cardinals closer Alex Reyes. Three days removed from his 500th career home run, one game removed from his 501st career homer, Cabrera socked a 592nd double. That put the game-tying rally in motion.
Against pinch hitter Harold Castro, Reyes got a strike away from the save before Castro laced a single. Cabrera steamrolled home from second to knot the game and burst the save opportunity. Turns out that two solo homers hit by the same individual in the first three innings of the game weren’t going to be enough to assure a win despite the scoreless efforts of three relievers.
Goldschmidt’s 18th career multi-homer game gave him his 20th and 21st homers of the season, his 900th and 901st RBIs of his career and all the offense the Cardinals could muster around the potholes of 13 strikeouts through eight innings.
The lunchtime start and sweltering heat to go with the Cardinals’ drift from the division race and 3-5 record on the home stand contributed to the most scarcely attended game since full capacity returned to Busch. The Cardinals announced a total of 24,304 tickets sold to the game, but there were less than half of that in attendance it seemed, many of them tucked into the shaded parts of the ballpark where plenty of seats could be found. In the later innings, as sun baked the bleachers, it was possible to count less than a 100 braving those griddles.
Veteran Jon Lester lugged the game through the five innings asked of him, and with the growing confidence in reliever Luis Garcia the Cardinals carried the one-run game through their preferred relay of relievers.
Garcia handled a scoreless sixth.
Genesis Cabrera sped through a perfect seventh.
Giovanny Gallegos, the Cardinals’ setup man, allowed a leadoff double in the eighth and then unnerved No. 3 hitter Robbie Grossman with an off-speed pitch for a strikeout that greased his way to a scoreless inning.
The three scoreless innings handled by the warmup trio for closer Reyes built upon the seven scoreless the bullpen threw Tuesday night after Jack Flaherty’s injury.
Lester gave the bullpen less to cover he as he had to tiptoe around allow seven hits in his five innings. The Tigers tagged him for one run, and that came in the fifth inning.
The difficulty the Cardinals had generating anything beyond what Goldschmidt put over the fence early in the game began with Detroit’s starter.
Lefty Tarik Skubal did not allow a ball in play within the reach of one of the fielders until the 10th Cardinal he faced. His first six outs were all strikeouts, all of them swinging. In his first trip through the Cardinals’ order, the lefty struck out seven and the only batters to reach were Goldschmidt as he rounded the bases for his first home run and Edmundo Sosa, who was hit by a pitch. Through five innings, Skubal allowed three hits and two of them were Goldschmidt’s homers for the only runs against the lefty.
Although Skubal did not continue past the fifth, the strikeouts did.
When the Cardinals ended the seventh inning with two runners on base and back-to-back strikeouts, Detroit pitchers had 13 strikeouts in the Cardinals’ first 21 outs.
All the strikeouts meant the Cardinals had few chances with runners on base and those chances often ended in whiffs as well.
The absence of a steady offense and gift for making opposing pitchers dazzle was at the crux of the disappointing home stand. The Cardinals did not win a series during their eight-game stay through the dog days. They entered Wednesday’s game with a .238 batting average on the home stand as a team and a .343 slugging percentage. By the time the ninth inning arrived Wednesday, the Cardinals had more strikeouts in the home stand (66) than hits (61) in the eight games.
