Cardinals 5 – Braves 3 F/11

Complete Recap

Chris Carpenter Friday surrendered 10 hits in seven innings of work, luckily allowing only 3 runs to the Braves. Two of the runs came off of the solo shot by Jason Heyward in the 1st and Nate McLouth thus prompting his departure after the 7th. The game was 3-2 Braves in the 7th at this point.

Mitchell Boggs came in to finish the 8th inning allowing no hits to the Braves. In the top of the 9th Daniel Descalso collected his second RBI in the game on a sac fly to score Tyler Greene to tie the game. The Cardinals send in Eduardo Sanchez to take care of the the 9th and the 10th inning.

The 11th inning is when the game finally took the turn and the Cardinals got their first lead of the game. The inning started off with Gerald Laird grounding out for one out to begin the inning. Ryan Theriot was hit by the pitch. Daniel Descalso cannot keep up his heroics and do all the work himself, he goes down swinging and there are now two outs.

The pitcher slot was next and Mark Hamilton comes in to replace Eduardo’s spot. Hamilton walks, Theriot moves to second and Nick Punto comes to the plate. Nick Punto is now up, we have heard for years about his amazing defensive ability, tonight his bat did the talking. Nick tripled to right field now Theriot and Hamilton came home to bring the score to 5-3 in favor of the Cards.

In the bottom of the 11th, Mitchell Boggs comes in to take care of the bottom half. Like the rest of the bullpen he goes for no hits or runs, and still only pitches for the first two outs. Trever Miller has had quite a few occasions this season he could not even record an out because he allowed a hit or walk and is quickly pulled. This however was not one of those nights and he records the final out to pick up his first save on the season.

Usually it’s the starting rotation to have a good outing and the bullpen has trouble in the end. Tonight is was the opposite for the most part, our three relievers went for the last four innings allowing no hits and no runs. We have all of the pieces for a stellar team but it seems like sometimes they take turns being the performers. If all of them can get clicking together this team is going to be unbelievable.