Game Recap - July 4 - Cardinal's take game and series at Pittsburgh, winning 3-2 in extras

07/04/2024 04:22 PM

Cards win a series within the division. Those are adding up.

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Cardinals take the series by squeaking out a 3-2 extra inning win. Pallante's quality start coupled with tough relief from Kittredge and King held the Pirates down. Key extra inning hits by Pages and Burleson was just enough to book the win.

Pre-Game Notes (mostly hospital ward reports)

• An early game today.
• Kittredge, Romero and Liberatore all pitched last night, as did Gallegos. I suppose the other half of the bullpen will have today's game. We may well see Bosiokovic today.
• Nootbar rehab continues. Sounds like he may join the team in Washington.
• Herrera rehab starts today in Memphis. With only 9 games til the ASB, it sounds like they may wait til after ASB to activate him. Seems odd he'd get more rehab games than Nootbar. But what do I know?
• O'Brien was on track to throw a bullpen yesterday. Will see how that goes.
• Matz is cleared to start throwing. He starts over again. Early August, maybe?
• Edman is still slowly working back. He is working out with Springfield. I gather he might someday start a rehab.
• I am completely confused about Tink Hence. He has made two aborted starts in June, totaling 3 innings and he is going to pitch in the Futures Game next week?
• Jared Jones, who pitched well for the Pirates last night, went on the IL today.

Line-up (and roster) machinations

• Neil Pallante takes the mound for Cardinals and Perez for the Pirates. He is a lefty. Kryptonite for the Cardinals this year.
• Is this a new look RH leaning line-up today? Only Burleson and Donovan will hit LH, other 7 are RH hitters (counting Carlson, a switch hitter). Carlson in CF, Fermin at 2B, Pages in at C.
• Interesting that Pirates have 3 LH hitters and 2 switch-hitters in their line-up. Seems like that would favor Neil a bit.

The Game

T1 - Winn leads off with a BB. Burly forces him at 2nd, though and Contreras GIDP ends the inning. Contreras hit a pitch middle-middle 103 mph. It was quick DP.

B1 - Cutch lines out to DC. Reynolds 6-3. Cruz singles (107), then swipes second on first pitch. Joe out 4-3.

T2 - Goldy pops out. That heat map you see for the batter on MLB AtBat has nine quadrants. All 9 are blue for Goldy (maybe heat map isn't such a good term?). Boy, is he struggling. Arenado out 6-3. Donovan tries to ground out 4-3, except Tellez cuts off the second baseman, surprising the pitcher who was tardy covering first. Two mental errors on same play produce a runner. Then DC spanks one into the LF corner for an RBI double. Fermin pops out. Cards up 1-0.

B2 - 5-3, F8, K makes a quick inning for Pallante.

T3 - Pages lines out to CF. Winn pops out. Burly out 5-3.

B3 - 5-3. Neil's velo is good. 96-ish. 1u. K for Cutch. Neil is at 41 pitches.

T4 - Contreras stings again (110 this time!) for a double. Then promptly gets caught stealing third. Whatever happened to never make the first out at third base? Goldy naturally singles. Ugh. He steals second. The over-30 crowd is running wild on Perez. Arenado F8. It's hard to hit with two injured arms, I suppose. Donovan out 1-3. Cards still up 1-0.

B4 - Reynolds crushes one to CF. Tie game. Cruz K. Joe singles. GIDP ends the inning. Game now tied 1-1.

T5 - Carlson singles off Hayes glove. Fermin follows that with a GIDP. Pages backwards K on middle-middle FB at a blistering 91. I've seen that a lot this year, not just from Cardinal's hitters. When did major league hitters lose the art of attacking and smashing middle-middle pitches?

This playing like a spring training game. Both pitchers in the 50's for pitch count in the fifth inning. Game is just over 1 hour so far.

B5 - K to start the inning. Single for Hayes. Bet he runs here. He does, but Pages throws him out. Suwinski K's. 2 GIDP and a K is a tough day at the plate. Still tied.

T6 - Winn singles (108 mph). Burly singles. Contreras GIDP, with runner holding at third. I was thinking first and third, no one out you go on contact to at least avoid the GIDP. Mental error there? Goldy backwards K. What's the emoticon for teeth-gnashing?

B6 - F8, followed by walk to Cutch. Force out to Fermin, 4-6. Missed DP opportunity there. Boy, Fermin just can't throw. Now a 4-3. End of 6. Tied 1-1. Hats off to Neil. 6 IP, 1 R, 86 pitches, 5 K, 1 BB. It's possible that is not his final line.

T7 - Perez comes back out at 75 pitches. Why not? 3 GIDP and a two mental lapses on the base have rescued him. The Cardinals obligingly have spread out those mistakes evenly across innings, so that while Perez has had only 1 clean inning, he still has a super low pitch count. Arenado out 5-3. Donovan out 4-3. DC pops out. Still tied.

B7 - Pallante IS back out with 86 pitches notched on his belt. He will need a new belt. Arenado with terrific play, 5-3. Tellez 3-1. Gonzalez pops out. Pirates out in 4 pitches. Hmmm. Thanks, I guess. Same line for Neil, except 7 full IP. QS for him. Nice job.

T8 - Fermin out 5-3. Perez is finally through. 7.1 innings, 2 K, 1 BB, 6 H, 1 R (and that was unearned). Nicolas in. Pages F9. Doesn't he know he is supposed to walk the first man he faces? Winn walks, though. Just bad sequencing there. Burly lines out. 1-1 still.

B8 - Kittredge in. Now it is a bullpen battle. Hayes K's. Suwinski ground rule double. Palacios PH for Grandal. HBP on a 1-2 count. Crew Chief review on the HBP, call overturned. Kittridge completes the walk to return to where we left off. Have I mentioned my mild aversion to walks? Cutch K's. Reynolds K's on epic 11 pitch AB. Kitt battles but emerges unscathed. Tied 1-1.

T9 - Holderman in for Pirates. Contreras K's. 2 GIDP and a K for him today, too. Goldy K's. Arenado hits little nubber, runs into P on way down the line down the line. Crew Chief review over-turns out call for a runner on first. Unsure of the scoring there. If they give Nolan Sr. a hit, it will be his first in 11 AB this series. Donovan doubles off the wall, but Arenado doesn't have the wheels to score on that laser. Carp PH for DC. Backwards K. Ugh!

B9 - King in. 1-3. 6-3. F9 makes a really clean inning for him. Bonus baseball!

T10 - Siani is the commissioner's runner at second. Santana in for Holderman. Fermin advances Siani to third with 4-3. Double by Pages for an RBI plus another runner in scoring position. Backwards K for Winn. Burly with a key bloop hit on 1-2 count for a seemingly crucial RBI. In this AB, his bat-to-ball skills on pitches outside the strike zone paid dividends. Contreras out 2-3. Cards now up 3-1.

B10 - King back out. I guess we are finding out exactly how thin the BP is. Taylor is the runner placed at second. SacFly scores him. You might be asking how a runner at second scored a SacFly. Gonzales fly to left was caught in the little nook by Donovan who then just kinda stopped and leaned against the fence as if to say Whew! and the runner alertly just kept running. Hayes lines out. Triolo singles on 2-2 pitch. Bart singles on 2-2 pitch. Cutch yet on another 2-strike pitch grounds into 6-4 force on a really nice play by Winn. Cards win 3-2. King gets the hard earned win. 34 pitches.

Post-game Notes (and random musings)

• Off to Washington for a 4-game series. Cards will face 4 lefties in DC. That could be trouble.
• Let's be real about this new pitcher, Neil Pallante. He has faced some pretty low octane offenses recently. BUT. He has shut them down and kept games in control and avoided all the nit-picking that gets him in trouble and seems to be stabilizing his splits against RH hitters a bit. I'd love another quality pitcher, but I give credit that he is bringing some stability to the back side of this rotation.
• It seems like the Cardinals offense is back in snooze mode again. I haven't looked much to see what RH bats might be available as we come up to the trade deadline. I'm hoping they can find one to play corner OF or DH.
• Is it just me or does it seem like Milwaukie is playing above their true talent level? They keep winning, in a way I find annoying. I can't quite figure out how they do it. I realize the 7.0 game gap between Cards and Brewers is mostly due to the 1-6 in head-to-head matchups. But still...
• That said, their management team impresses me. They do well with what they have. I thought Woodruff and Burnes out of their rotation and Counsell out of the dugout would really hurt them, but they soldier on.
• I think I'd like to see Crawford play a bit more. I may be the only one.
• Speaking of Goldy...The first great player I got to watch decline was Bob Gibson. He was great right up until getting hurt in late 1973. In 1974, he was good, but not dominating. In '75, well, it was a struggle. I've never liked that end of the career arc, but I accept living with it because I want to treasure the greatness I saw, and seeing the arc to the end is part of how I pay tribute (as a fan) to that greatness.
• Fanposts are back? When did that occur?