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Today’s game started out very promising. After an uneventful first inning, the Cardinals were getting things going in the second. Jose Martinez started things off with a double. A passed ball brought him to third base, and Kolten Wong hit a bloop single to drive him home. 1-0 Cardinals, with no outs! I was excited! But then...BUT THEN. The rain set in and we had a delay. A two-hour delay. Remember when Michael Wacha was the rain god? Me, too.
Two hours passed. I played five games of pool beer pong. Gotta be honest, I was KINDA hoping for a postponement. This is peak Arizona summer. Alas, I was not so lucky.
So fast forward two hours. The Cardinals’ second inning ended unceremoniously. For some reason, Wacha came back out for the bottom of the second. I knew it was a bad idea, you knew it was a bad idea, but here we are. A walk, a homerun, a single, and another single followed. 2-1 Pirates. Then a double play, which scored a run, but fine. I thought to myself, maybe Wacha will sneak out of this! NOPE. Double to the pitcher, Chad Kuhl, then a home run to Starling Marte. 5-1. Sigh.
There we remained, deadlocked at 5-1 against a sucky team. Plenty of time to come back, yes? Or no. Wacha only pitched four innings. Josh Lucas (who? I literally have no idea) came in to pitch the fifth. He gave up a couple singles, but got out of the inning clean. Unfortunately, Lucas stayed in for the sixth inning and gave up a solo home run to Jose Osuna. 6-1 Baddies.
The Cardinals did a very dumb thing in the top of the eighth in which they gave me hope again and made me believe that we could come back and win this game. I wish they would stop doing that. Greg Garcia singled, and, after a couple of outs, Paul DeJong homered. At the end of the inning, Pirates still lead, 6-3.
But this continued! Top of the ninth, one pitch, one home run to Mr. Jose Martinez. 6-4 Rats. Could we come back from this? I got pretty excited. But Kolten Wong grounded out. I was starting to lose hope. Randal Grichuk hit a ground ball, initially called safe, but called out on the replay. Two outs, the Cardinals’ last hope was Carson Kelly, getting the start for Yadier Molina today. He struck out on a 99 mph fastball. Boo.
A tough loss for the boys in red, especially considering that the Cubs won today. We fall to 2.5 games back of first place. Wacha should NEVER have come back out after that rain delay. Hindsight is 20/20, sure, but we all knew better. Matheny should have, too.
But, hope is not lost. Still a lot of season left to play. The Cardinals face the Pirates again tomorrow, Sunday Night Baseball at 6:00 pm CT. Mike Leake faces Ivan Nova. GO CARDS!