Lack of offense, St. Louis Cardinals fall 2-1 to Atlanta Braves

Limited to one run on six hits, the St. Louis Cardinals offense didn’t really deliver as the club was defeated by the Atlanta Braves in a 2-1 loss.
May 5, 2014; Atlanta, GA, USA; St. Louis Cardinals left fielder Matt Holliday (7) hits an RBI single in the fifth inning against the Atlanta Braves at Turner Field. Image Credit: Daniel Shirey-USA TODAY Sports
Matt Holliday served as the team’s most valuable player on Tuesday although manager Mike Matheny double-switched him out of the game in the eight inning, with the team losing, when he chose to replace Randy Choate with Pat Neshek. Holliday had a 2-for-4 night at the plate. He drove in third baseman Matt Carpenter on a single. It turned out to be the only run of the game.

Holliday is now batting .272 this season. A veteran of ten complete seasons split between the Cardinals and the Colorado Rockies, Holliday is in his eleventh major league season. There’s no reason why he won’t have a batting average over .300 when the year is finished. Holliday has seven seasons in his career with a batting average over .300 but fell a few points short in three seasons. The three seasons that Holliday fell short were still above .290 so I expect he will start heating up.

In the last ten games, the Cardinals left fielder is hitting .275 in 40 at-bats with a home run and seven RBIs. This includes three multi-hit games.

With a 1-for-3 night, Matt Carpenter raised his average up to .273 on the season. Despite three multi-hit games, the third baseman is only hitting .256 in his past 10 games.

Despite a great night for Peter Bourjos on Monday, Matheny elected to start Jon Jay against Gavin Floyd. It didn’t help. Jay went 0-for-3 with one strikeout, lowering his batting average to .256 this season. Playing Jay does not do much for the offense right now.

Filling in for Joe Kelly, Tyler Lyons pitched six solid innings for the Cardinals. He allowed only one run on four hits. He walked one and struck out seven batters. The sole hit came on a home run off the bat of Justin Upton.

Minor League Watch:
Kolten Wong: 1-for-4, .333
Oscar Taveras: 0-for-4, .301
Stephen Piscotty: 3-for-4, 2B, .310