The Cardinals offense wouldn’t show up until the 7th inning vs Royals starter, Brad Keller. Keller would toss 6 no-hit innings, walking 3 batters and striking out 5.
But on the flip side, Hud wasn’t budging vs the Royals bats, pitching 6 shutout innings himself. Hud would scatter five Royals hits, giving up a pair of doubles to Viloria and O’Hearn. Hud would induce two huge double play balls during his outing, the final one ending his evening– a 6-4-3 double play off the bat of Cuthbert to work around a one out walk to Soler.
Swags opened up the 7th inning with the first Cardinals hit vs Keller, a single lined into LF. Deez and Carp followed that with back to back singles, Carp’s driving in Swags to make it 1-0 Cards and putting an end to Keller’s night. McCarthy would be summoned from the pen and immediately serve an rbi single to Yadi, his first rbi since 07/03 vs the Mariners.
Raaaaaaaandy delivered an rbi infield single, his first career hit, and it was a whacky play. The ball looked to hit Yadi, which would make it an out and a dead ball, but after looking at the play further the umpires would determine the ball barely tipped the glove of Lopez, making it 3-0 Cardinals.
Dex would drive in a run with a sac-fly to CF to make it 4-0 and Edman would ground into a fielder’s choice to make it 5-0.
Pauly Deez would send a solo HR, his 20th of the year to the fountains in LCF off Staumont in the 8th– 104mph exit velocity, 432 feet.
Webb (1.1IP), G-Spot (0.2IP), and Fernandez (1IP) worked a scoreless final 3 innings. Fernandez worked a quick 1-2-3 inning on 10 pitches, flashing some 98mph gas with a fantastic feel for his slider tonight. Fernandez would strikeout Cuthbert on a slider to end the game for a 6-0 Cardinals winner.
With the win, the Cardinals (63-55) have won five straight games, sneaking back into a 1st place tie with the Cubs for the NLC.
It’s a #happyflight to Cincy to take on the Reds (56-63).
Michael Wacha (6-5, 5.54) gets the ball in game-one, facing off against Sonny Gray (7-6, 3.10). First pitch from Great American Ballpark, 6:10pm c/t.
Cheers, Stew