The Giants appeared to still be reeling from another blown ninth-inning lead in Saturday’s 3-2 loss. The Giants erased the 1-0 deficit created by Moss’ first-inning homer with a run of their own in the second.
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Aledmys Diaz smacked a two-run home run off Giants starter Albert Suarez in the third inning, giving St. Louis a lead it would not relinquish en route to its second straight victory. In a matchup of a guy the Giants acquired to help in their 2015 playoff push and the $90 million replacement for 2016, the Cardinals’ Mike Leake and San Francisco’s Jeff Samardzija pitched well enough to win.
“Yeah, I’ve had a few reminders over the last week or two”, Posey said with a chuckle.
The Cardinals desperately need a series split, at least, and now they remain a game back of the Giants and two back of the Mets in the Wild Card race. Madison Bumgarner (14-9 2.66 ERA) will take the hill for San Francisco while Clayton Kershaw makes his third start for the Dodgers since returning from the 60-Day disabled list.
Diaz gave the Redbirds an early 2-0 lead when he connected for his 16th home run on Sunday.
“It was a good feeling”, he said.
“Just some great at-bats late”, Matheny said. “It’s kind of out of the ordinary with him”.
At this time of year, rhetoric can change dramatically from game to game, if not pitch to pitch. You might want to watch the games anyway to see what happens. Now, after two road losses in San Francisco, they can’t seem to win anywhere. Posey singled in a pair of runs that inning, when all the runs were unearned off rookie right-hander Luke Weaver (1-3).
Umpires: Plate umpire Brian O’Nora left the game after being struck in the mask by a foul ball of Hunter Pence’s bat in the second inning. This time, it came on the heels of Thursday’s 6-2 victory behind Johnny Cueto’s five-hitter. Dare I say, it was nice to see Santiago Casilla get in the game and take command for three outs.
It proved the right call again. He was aided by three double plays, all on grounders hit to shortstop Brandon Crawford.
The Colorado Rockies beat the San Diego Padres 6-3, the Oakland Athletics were 5-2 winners over the Texas Rangers, the Seattle Mariners overcame the Houston Astros 7-3 and the Miami Marlins edged the Philadelphia Phillies 5-4.
Suarez (3-4) was pulled after five innings, having allowed two runs on five hits. “He knows where we are in the season and he’s been able to stay focused and continue to really maximize the moment”.
And although they did not lose ground to the Cardinals in the NL wild card chase while splitting this four-game series, they wasted an opportunity to twist the knife while scoring just two runs over the final two games.
“We’ve just got to play better, that’s all there is to it”. That’s all it is. The Mets would add another run in the bottom of the seventh on a Yoenis Cespedes RBI single. Holliday has been out since August 12 and had hoped the sim game would provide momentum for returning. He had surgery to insert a screw for the fracture.
Going into Saturday, Matheny said, “You could feel the losses take their toll”, and he called a team meeting that afternoon. “It’s clearly not 100 percent”.
“I don’t keep track of how many in a row”.
The Cardinals have a loaded bullpen (Wacha, check; Rosenthal, check; Williams, Kiekhefer, Socolovich, check, check, check) to cover any leftover innings from Reyes, but the preference is he gives them four, five solid innings to get a lead and then the team holds from there.
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Law has an 0.39 ERA in 26 outings since July 4.
