Cardinals 10-run 6th inning caps off historic 12-11 comeback victory
Where do I even begin? I don’t even know what to say. I’ve seen it all. Baseball truly is the best sport. There’s no clock, you always have a chance as long as you have outs to play with, even if you’re down 7-0 heading into the top of the 6th. That’s the exact situation the Cardinals found themselves in at Great American Smallpark last night.
The Reds would demolish Uncle Charlie thru his rough 3.1 innings of work– surrendering 7 runs on 9 hits, walking none with 4 strikeouts.
The Reds exploded in the 3rd and 4th vs Waino, scoring all their runs off him in those respective innings. Lavarnway, Votto, Peraza (took over for Suárez after his 1st inning ejection for arguing strikes), and Puig would all deliver rbi base knocks in the 3rd. Lavarnway delivered the big blow in the bottom of the 4th, sending a 3-run oppo taco shot off Waino to put an end to his night.
But, then the 6th inning happened. The Cardinals managed just three hits up until this point, but they’d rattle off 8 in the 6th alone. The Reds would have to use three different pitchers to escape this nightmare (Mahle, Bowman, Hughes). Here’s how it went down:
Bader leadoff single to CF, Edman single to RF, Cafecíto infield single (bases juiced), Goldy sac-fly to LF (his first sac-fly since September of 2017), Prince Sex rbi single (enter Bowman), Muñoz “infield single” if you wanna call it that, KoWo sac-fly to RF, Pauly Deez two run double down the LF line to make it 7-5 (enter Hughes), Knizner rbi double off the top of the wall in CF, Bader walk, Edman reaches on a Votto fielding error (wut?), Edman steals 2B, Cafecíto clears the bags by absolutely clubbing a 3-run shot to put the Cards on top 10-7.
Did you follow all that? Because is this even real life?
Wacha, Shreve, and Gant worked a perfect 3.2 innings out of the pen in relief of Waino.
Pauly Deez added two HUGE insurance runs with one swing of the bat in the top of the 7th. After KoWo worked a two out walk, Deez would would take Stephenson DEEP to LF (420 feet) to make it a 12-7 Cardinals lead.
Dominic Leone wanted to make things interesting though, naturally. Leone would give up a single to VanMeter and follow that up serving up a cookie to Lavarnway, Lavarnway’s second big fly of the game, making it a 12-9 game. Andrew Miller would come in to finish the inning, picking up two k’s– one making Votto look silly again, getting him to fan at a slider.
Tsunami would get the call to try and shut the door for his 7th save of the season, but it was no easy task. After striking out the first two batters (Gennett and Ervin) on a filthy changeup and slider, the next four Reds would reach base. Dietrich would hit a pinch-hit double into RF, VanMeter walked, Lavarnway walked, and Winker lined a two run single into RF to make it a 12-11 game with the tying run just 90 feet away and the winning run at 1B. Guess who came up to bat next? Yup, Joey Votto. Deep breaths, deep breaths. Votto would send a line shot on the ground down to Goldy, who stepped on the bag for the final out to hang on for the 12-11, nail biting, comeback win.
The Cardinals (50-46) had less than a 1% chance of winning this game heading into the 6th inning, a good life lesson to never say never– anything is possible, seriously.
The Liz King (6-9, 4.15) takes the ball in game three, matching up with my favorite non-Cardinal and filthy changeup tosser, Luis Castillo (9-3, 2.41). First pitch from GABP is 6:10pm c/t.
Cheers, Stew
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