Andre Pallante gave the St. Louis Cardinals the quality start their bullpen so badly needed as he throttled the Arizona Diamondbacks at Busch Stadium Monday night.
The St. Louis Cardinals threatened to break the game open early as they loaded the bases in the bottom of the 1st inning. JJ Wetherholt and Iván Herrera singled along with Alec Burleson‘s walk started what looked to be a big inning of crooked numbers for St. Louis. Wrong. Jordan Walker‘s weak line-out to the shortstop and Lars Nootbaar hitting into a double-play ruined any chances the Cardinals had at jumping on Arizona quick. The lack of taking advantage of this 1st inning opportunity would make the latter innings nerve-racking.
Nolan Arenado‘s return to St. Louis was, as expected, welcomed by a nice ovation from the Busch Stadium crowd as he led off the bottom of the 2nd inning. Nolan would follow this with a single that fortunately did not lead to an Arizona run.
The St. Louis Cardinals would score first, but it wouldn’t happen until the bottom of the 3rd inning when Nathan Church led off with a single and then stole second. JJ Wetherholt moved him over with a smart groundout to second advancing Church to third. After Iván Herrera walked, Alec Burleson bounced a seeing-eye single over first base which second baseman Marte couldn’t handle scoring Church giving the Cardinals a 1-0 lead.
St. Louis would triple their lead in the bottom of the 4th inning which sounds better than it actually was. Lars Nootbaar led off with a walk followed by a Masyn Winn single. Jimmy Crooks moved both of them up a base when he grounded out to first. Blaze Jordan knocked in Nootbaar with a deep sacrifice fly to center giving the Cardinals a 2-0 lead which would become 3-0 when Nathan Church singled in Masyn Winn.
The Arizona Diamondbacks would start to chip away at the St. Louis Cardinals lead starting in the top of the 6th inning. Carroll led off with a double to right. He would advance to third on a ground ball from Smith to JJ Wetherholt. Nolan Arenado would show that he has transitioned from former teammate to arch enemy as he grounded out to Masyn Winn scoring Carroll making it 3-1 Cardinals. That would end Andre Pallante’s night as he exited after the 6th inning with a respectable start. Over those 6 innings, Andre allowed 6 hits with just 1 earned run while striking out two and walking no one.
Ryne Stanek started, but did not finish the 7th inning. He successfully got Gurriel Jr. to fly out to right for the first out, but the second batter he faced fared better against him as Tommy Troy absolutely destroyed a 97 mph four-seam fastball to dead center as his home run traveled 444 feet reducing the Cardinals lead to just one at 3-2. Stanek was able to get Tawa out on a line-out, but he was then removed for JoJo Romero who came in and got Perdomo to ground out to Blaze Jordan at third maintaining the narrow St. Louis lead after 7 innings.
What kind of confidence do we Cardinals fans have in the St. Louis bullpen? Well, I’m pretty sure I didn’t breathe (well) for the final two innings. JoJo Romero kept the Cardinals lead intact through the first two outs of the 8th inning although the ball that Vargas cracked to deep center field sure looked like we might be tied soon. George Soriano was brought in to face Nolan Arenado for the final out of the 8th inning and he was fortunately successful getting Nado out on a popup to Burleson at first.
The St. Louis Cardinals bottom of the 9th inning again was in the hands of Riley O’Brien. Did we finally get a no-drama 9th? I’m happy to report that Riley took care of the bottom of the Diamondbacks order to seal the Cardinals victory with no baserunners allowed.
The St. Louis Cardinals continue their streak of 7 home games-in-a-row with game 2 against the Arizona Diamondbacks Tuesday night. Kyle Leahy gets the start for the Cardinals while the Diamondbacks are scheduled to start LHP Eduardo Rodriguez. First pitch is scheduled for 6:45pm central time at Busch Stadium and the broadcast will be available on Cardinals.tv.
