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Recapped over Captain Morgan and Coke Zero. Why, yes, I AM 22 years old; thank you for asking!
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The schedule looked good
Reds, Braves, Reds; we should get wins
But the best laid plans
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Carlos Martinez faced off tonight against Roberto Hernandez. He of the 4.58 career ERA; he of the 5.40 2016 ERA; he who just got called up from AAA, where he was very unimpressive. So, this combined with the facts that the Braves are one of the worst teams in the NL and the Cardinals' arguably best pitcher was pitching tonight, gave me supreme confidence that a win would, in fact, occur. Unfortunately, this was a game where we came soclose many times to tying the score or at least making it an honest contest, but the boys in red couldn't get it done. Have I mentioned that I hate recapping losses? Well, I do. A lot. Let's just get on with it.
The Braves scored early and often tonight. One run in the first inning; three in second off singles to Ender Inciarte and Erick Aybar, followed by a devastating three-run Freddie Freeman homerun. 4-0 Braves.
The Cardinals started a comeback in the fourth inning. Brandon Moss, Jhonny Peralta, and Yadier Molina got hits and brought the score to 4-2 Braves. Not too shabby. But lest you get too excited, let me disabuse of the notion that the game could turn around in the Cardinals' favor. In the top of the fifth inning, Martinez gave up another three-run home run, this time to Adonis Garcia. 7-2 bad guys.
Kolten Wong hit a solo home run in the bottom of the fifth, and then it was 7-3. We had hope, however misguided. Oh, and by the way, Wong stayed in the game to play second base because Matt Carpenter might be injured again and everything is terrible.
Let's see...what else? We loaded the bases in the sixth, but to no avail. We scored a couple of times in the eighth . With runners on second and third, Tommy Pham hit a deep ground ball to the second baseman who threw to first, but could not quite get Pham for the out. This was, of course, of no concern to the umpires, who called Pham out anyway, even after the Cardinals challenged the play. In this recapper's opinion, the replay showed Pham pretty obviously safe. Makes you wonder why we have replays at all. Anyway, a run did score, and we were at 7-5, but with two outs instead of one. No additional runs crossed the plate.
A win seemed within reach. Then the ninth inning happened. The Braves scored six runs, mostly off Jonathan Broxton, who continues to be the thorn in the bullpen's side. He's been mediocre at best this season, and tonight he was downright awful, giving up three singles and two home runs.
And weren't we all a little annoyed when the first two Cardinals batters reached in the bottom of the ninth? Like, seriously? It's 13-5. I really cannot sit through an inning where we score three or four runs and I start to get hope, only to have it cruelly dashed by the harsh extreme unlikelihood that we will ever win this game. Luckily, Moss struck out and Holliday grounded into a double play and we could all go on with our evenings.
Adam Wainwright takes the hill against Mike...(/triple checks the spelling of this) Foltynewicz tomorrow at 12:15 CT. Whaddaya say we lock down a win tomorrow, boys?