The Cardinals hopes for claiming a series win over the Padres was put on hold Saturday night as San Diego limited St. Louis to just three hits in its 3-1 victory.
Matthew Liberatore returned to the mound for the first time in two weeks and took the loss. He wasn’t “bad” Saturday night, but he wasn’t exactly inspiring a lot of confidence in his outing either. Liberatore only pitched 4.1 innings, allowing two runs (one earned), five hits, walked two, and struck out three.
Pitching opposite of Liberatore for San Diego was Randy Vasquez, and he gave the Cardinals fits despite a short outing. In just 4.2 innings of work, Vasquez allowed St. Louis its lone run, and gave up one hit, walked another, while striking out a pair.
Ironically, on a night where St. Louis made some highlight worthy plays in the field, it was the two that they didn’t that proved to be the difference.
San Diego’s first run of the night came in the second inning, and it was aided by a Victor Scott error. With a runner on first and two out, Bryce Johnson singled up the middle, but Scott bobbled the ball. The miscue and some hustle by Jake Cronenworth allowed San Diego to grab a 1-0 lead.
All would be forgiven in the home half of the inning, however, as a Jordan Walker double to center scored Nolan Arenado to even the score. Unfortunately, that would be the only run the Cards would score.
Cronenworth continued to be a pest for St. Louis, and led off the fourth inning with a double to right field. San Diego small balled its way to a 2-1 lead after back-to-back productive ground ball outs.
For the second straight night, tempers flared after a hit batter. It all started when Vasquez plunked Willson Contreras, and warnings were issued to both benches. Manny Machado would get hit by a Liberatore pitch in the fifth inning, but took his base with no issue; however, Machado would get hit for a second time in the ninth inning, this time by Andre Granillo, which led to the benches clearing and Jon Jay getting ejected.
The HBP, clearly, wasn’t intentional. It’s the ninth inning, St. Louis is down two runs, with a runner already on first base, and Machado was down on an 0-2 count before he got hit. These two teams are going to be seeing a lot of each other over the next week or so, and with the Cardinals and Padres battling for a wild card, tensions are going to be high.
St. Louis will try to claim this four-game series tomorrow afternoon as Michael McGreevy is set to take the mound opposite of Stephen Kolek. Here’s hoping there’s not an all-out brawl tomorrow afternoon.