Thursday afternoon featured the rubber game of the series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Washington Nationals. The Nationals won the first game of the series 2-1, after Yunel Escobar hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 10th inning. The Cardinals would respond in the second game, with three team home runs, and strong bullpen pitching, as they won 7-5.
And in the third game, until the end, it looked just like the first one did.
Except this time, the outcome went in the Cardinals favor.
The pitching match-up featured two top young pitchers in baseball: Michael Wacha and St. Louis native (and Parkway Central High School alumni) Max Scherzer. Third baseman Matt Carpenter, who led off Wednesday’s game with a solo home run, led off Thursday’s game with a double off the right field wall. It would extend his hitting streak to 10 games.
Jason Heyward then hit a bloop single into left field, and Carpenter would advance to third.
Scherzer would then strike out Matt Holliday, whose league-leading 12-game hitting streak ended the previous night. Matt Adams, who, aside from a solo shot the previous night (like Carpenter), had struggled during the majority of the series vs. the Nationals, was at-bat next.
A wild pitch thrown by Scherzer with Adams up would score Carpenter and advanced Heyward to second, giving the Cardinals thee 1-0 lead.
After a pop-out by Adams, Jhonny Peralta would strike out as Wacha would take the mound in the bottom of the first. Denard Span would walk, Ian Desmond then struck out, and Bryce Harper then singled on a line drive to center field. With two on and one out, Ryan Zimmerman stepped up, flied out to right-center, but Span would then advance to third. Clint Robinson, who only had 13 major league at-bats prior to this season, flew out to Jay to end the inning.
Yadier Molina, who had started every game this season, got an off-day. Tony Cruz, who wound up starting Thursday, would strike out in his first at-bat in the top of the second.
Early on, Wacha, who has started 2015 off on a positive note, pitched at a good pace, with under 30 pitches to get through the first two innings, with the Cardinals still leading 1-0, heading into the top of the third. Wacha actually nearly got a base hit as he led off the third, but Harper made an excellent sliding catch in right to get the out.
Carpenter in his second at-bat, would single to center field, but he wound up being stranded on base, as Heyward grounded out.
Through the next couple innings, both pitchers held their ground, as it remained a 1-0 game, despite both teams garnering hits, and even getting into scoring position on occasion. In fact, it only took Scherzer five pitches to get through the top of the fifth inning.
But in the bottom of the fifth…things became interesting. With a runner on second, Scherzer hit a ball to Peralta, who in turn threw it to Adams to get Scherzer out. Until replay showed he stepped off the bag, which put runners on the corners with no outs. Span then would tie the game up with a base hit, and Scherzer advanced to third. Desmond flied out, subsequently, Harper struck out, and Zimmerman would get out as the fifth inning ended with the game tied up at 1-1.
Heyward got his second base hit with a two out single up the middle in the top of the sixth inning, followed by Holliday being hit by a pitch on the upper elbow, putting two on with Adams. And he would break the tie, hitting an opposite field single that scored Heyward, giving St. Louis a 2-1 lead.
Wacha and Scherzer, who both not only pitched into the seventh inning, but also were under 90 pitches by the start of the inning. During the top of the eighth inning, after just 82 pitches (but seven innings pitched), Nationals manager Matt Williams took out Scherzer, and brought in reliever Matt Thornton. Holliday would get a single off of Thornton. Aaron Barrett would enter the game in relief of Thornton, and Mark Reynolds would pinch-hit for Wacha, and later play first base for Adams.
Reynolds would hit one off the right field wall, scoring Holliday, and a poor throw by Barrett, which led to the ball going back into center field, wound up scoring Reynolds, giving St. Louis a 4-1 lead late in the game.
Jordan Walden entered in relief of Wacha during the bottom half of the eighth inning. After a double by Desmond to lead off, Harper walks, bring up Zimmerman, the potential tying run in the game. But Zimmerman would not be able to capitalize, hitting into a double play, which was followed by a Robinson line out, keeping the Cardinals ahead by three in the ninth.
To start off the ninth, Tanner Roark would enter in relief for Barrett, walking Jay, and Cruz would hit into a double play. Next up for the Cardinals was another young player, Dean Anna, making his Cardinals debut (he had experience in 2014 with the Yankees), but he’d ground out.
Enter Trevor Rosenthal.
With the closer on the mound, he would deliever a 1-2-3 inning to get his sixth save on the season, the Cardinals their 10th win of the year, and they take two of three on the year.
The final line for Wacha: seven innings pitch, one hit, one earned run, six strikeouts, along with his third win of the season. He is now 3-0 on the season.
