Cardinals blank Cincinnati in series finale

Many people have compared St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Michael Wacha to Pac-Man.

The standout hurler inspires fans to yell “wacha wacha wacha”, much like Pac-Man eating dots, whenever he has a great outing.

Thursday at Great American Ball Park, Wacha ate the dots, the energy tablets, the fruit and all the monsters, as the Cardinals shut out the Cincinnati Reds 3-0 in the finale of a three-game series.

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St. Louis (69-39) improved its lead to six games over the idle Pittsburgh Pirates. Because the Chicago Cubs edged the San Francisco Giants, 5-4, the Cubs stayed 9 1/2 games back.

Wacha improved to 13-4 overall as he struck out six in seven innings of work. Jonathan Broxton and Randy Choate pitched the eighth inning and handed it off to Trevor Rosenthal, who picked up his 32nd save.

Although the Cardinals mustered just five hits, they scored three runs in the middle of the game. St. Louis used an RBI single by Tony Cruz in the fourth inning and a two-run single by Kolten Wong in the fifth inning.

Wacha limited the Reds to five hits, including two by Eugenio Suarez, as the Cardinals stayed 30 games above .500.

Despite the fact St. Louis faced Cincinnati’s Michael Lorenzen, who dropped to 3-7 overall, the Cards still had trouble scoring. This is getting to be troubling. I don’t want to sound like a broken record, but St. Louis needs to put together a strong lineup for the stretch run.

What’s next

The Cardinals travel to Miller Park for a three-game series against the Milwaukee Brewers beginning Friday. Come back to Redbird Rants Friday morning for a preview of the series.