It was a game that went south quickly for the Cardinals. They found themselves down 7-0 in the third inning, thanks in part to two home runs off the bat of the red-hot Jesse Winker.
It stayed that way until the bottom of the sixth, when the Birds started to chip away.
It started with a two-run blast from Tyler O’Neill, followed by hits from Matt Carpenter and Tommy Edman. With nobody out, St. Louis came within 7-5 with Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado due up.
Though Goldschmidt lined into a double play, hope was re-ignited when Arenado laced the first pitch from Reds reliever Tejay Antone into left-center to bring in two more runs, tying the game at 7 and taking starter John Gant off the hook for his fourth loss of the season.
The stars seemed to be aligned. After a stretch marred by injuries to Jack Flaherty, Kwang-Hyun Kim, and Harrison Bader, as well as a four-game losing skid, St. Louis had dragged themselves out of a seven run deficit, and looked primed to pull off the most unlikely win of the season thus far.
A well-rested Giovanny Gallegos threw two scoreless innings and turned it over to Alex Reyes in the ninth, who is perfect in save opportunities this year.
However, even he couldn’t contain Winker, who belted his third home-run to put the Reds back on top, paving the way for Cincinnati to sweep the Cardinals in a four-game series in St. Louis for the first time since 1990.
“I’m frustrated but I’m not concerned,” said Mike Shildt. “The reason I’m frustrated is we weren’t able to get the result that we would like to have in the game. I’m not concerned because we have a group of guys playing clean baseball. Our walks are down so that narrative has improved, and we fought our tails off and competed at every turn. There’d be concern if there were other things that were taking place, lack of effort, lack of fight, lack of competitive spirit, not playing clean, playing sloppy and beating ourselves, but that wasn’t necessarily the case this whole series.”
Shildt had every reason to be proud of his club, as even after Winker had put Cincinnati back in front, St. Louis threatened in the bottom of the ninth, putting two runners in scoring position with nobody out for O’Neill.
Unfortunately, O’Neill popped out to Jonathan India, and Reds reliever Lucas Sims was able to get back-to-back strikeouts on Edmundo Sosa and Jose Rondon to end the game and send the Cardinals to their fifth consecutive loss, their longest skid since June of 2019.
And it’s not going to get any easier for St. Louis, despite today being an off-day, as tomorrow, the Cleveland Indians come into town with last year’s AL Cy Young award winner, Shane Bieber towing the rubber. The Cardinals will counter with Carlos Martinez, who in his last outing didn’t make it through the first inning, allowing 10 runs against the defending champion Dodgers in a 14-3 loss that started the current skid.
To add insult to injury, the Reds are currently without Mike Moustakas and Joey Votto, as they entered the series in St. Louis 24-29.
In the past week, the Cardinals have gone from leading the division to now being in third-place, two-and-a-half games behind the Cubs and Brewers.
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