{"id":1007572,"date":"2026-08-18T00:40:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T00:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1007572\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T00:40:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T00:40:17","slug":"alec-burleson-leads-the-cardinals-over-the-reds-2-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1007572\/","title":{"rendered":"Alec Burleson leads the Cardinals over the Reds 2-1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>CINCINNATI \u2014 Alec Burleson delivered a two-run double early and four St. Louis relievers turned in perfect innings late, helping the Cardinals beat the Cincinnati Reds 2-1 in the first game of a doubleheader Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The Cardinals won for the 10th time in 14 games as they try to chase an NL wild-card playoff spot.<\/p>\n<p>Burleson put them ahead for good in the first inning with a double down the right-field line that scored Joshua B\u00e1ez and Iv\u00e1n Herrera. B\u00e1ez, who became the first player to hit <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/cardinals-joshua-baez-debut-home-runs-0b0e9a1b40e5a03155d9fad6cb8e8758?utm_source=copy&amp;utm_medium=share\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">three home runs in his first three at-bats in the major leagues<\/a> on Saturday, was hitless for the second consecutive day since his record-setting debut.<\/p>\n<p>Left-hander Quinn Mathews, making his second career start, allowed one run in four innings \u2014 a homer in the fourth by Dane Myers, who had two of the Reds&#8217; three hits. Matthews gave way to a stout bullpen that allowed just one hit over the final five frames. He allowed two hits and three walks and struck out seven.<\/p>\n<p>Luis Gastelum (3-2), Gordon Graceffo and George Soriano pitched three-up, three-down innings. Ryne Stanek followed with a scoreless eighth and All-Star closer Riley O\u2019Brien struck out the side in the ninth for his NL-leading 31st save.<\/p>\n<p>Kent Emanuel (0-1) gave up two runs on five hits in five innings. Cincinnati selected the contract of the 34-year-old left-hander from Triple-A Louisville to make the start.<\/p>\n<p>Up next<\/p>\n<p>Cardinals RHP Andre Pallante (12-6, 3.46 ERA) will start the nightcap, with RHP Rhett Lowder (4-8, 5.15 ERA) going for the Reds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI \u2014 Alec Burleson delivered a two-run double early and four St. Louis relievers turned in perfect innings&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1007573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[30319,7448,1578,10595,1266,50,1573,63996,13570,62,52,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1007572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-app-sports","tag-app-top-stories","tag-associated-press","tag-cincinnati","tag-mlb","tag-news","tag-ohio","tag-ohio-cincinnati-reds","tag-spectrum-news-staff","tag-sports","tag-top-stories","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1007572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1007573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1007572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1007572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1007572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}