Rants Daily: Beltran misses cycle, Cardinals fall to Braves in extras 9-7

Carlos Beltran‘s one man show continued to amaze last night as he flirted with the cycle, but settled with two home runs, a triple and double. Unbelievably it was not enough to get the St. Louis Cardinals a victory as they fell to the Atlanta Braves 9-7 in twelve innings.

Beltran now has 12 HR and 31 RBIs on the season. He lifted his average to .307 with the monster night. The problem was the Braves hitters were busy battering Jaime Garcia and several other Redbird relievers.

The game started off sketchy for the Cardinals. Garcia allowed a lead off single to Michael Bourn, a ground-rule double to Martin Prado and walked Freddie Freeman to load the bases. Then the unthinkable happened as sure handed catcher Yadier Molina allowed two passed balls, each allowing a run to give the Braves a 2-0 lead.

The Cardinals got one back in the second on Matt Carpenter home run. But, the Braves opened up a four-run lead hitting three ground rule doubles in the process.

In the bottom half of the fourth, Beltran hit his first homer of the night and Allen Craig followed with one of this own to get the Cards within two.

In the sixth the Cardinals took the lead on a RBI-double by Matt Holliday and then Beltran tripled in two more runs to make the score 6-5.

The Braves used a Dan Uggla homer in the seventh and a Freeman RBI-single in the eighth to reclaim the lead. But, Beltran tied it with his second homer of the night, this one off vaunted set-up man Jonny Venters.

The teams exchanged zeroes in the 9th, 10th and 11th. Jason Motte pitched two scoreless, easily the most effective reliever of the night for the Cardinals. In the top half of the twelfth, Kyle McClellan came on for the Redbirds. He walked Chipper Jones and Jason Heyward blasted a two-run homer to give the Braves a 9-7 lead. Craig Kimbrel, the Braves closer, finished off the Cardinals in the bottom of the twelfth.

NOTEWORTHY

• The loss put a damper on the festivities surrounding Tony La Russa’s number 10 being retired.
• Lance Berkman was not activated from the DL as was originally thought when he still felt soreness in his left calf after taking batting practice.
• Kyle Lohse feels confident he can make his next scheduled start after suffering a minor hamstring strain in Wednesday’s game.

TODAY’S GAME

MY FINAL TWO CENTS

For what it’s worth, it was a nice run as Redbird Rants’ editor, but I’ve taken a senior editorial position with FanSided’s New York Yankees website, Yanks Go Yard. I’ve been working both positions this week and Redbird Rants has found a replacement for me so I will be moving on with this being my last column. The search for my replacement thankfully did not need to go far as Justin McClary will be taking the reigns. Justin has been a staff writer for the site for about the same amount of time I was on board as editor.

I want to thank the readers of our site for getting Redbird Rants back on the map. I know Justin and the staff will continue to generate great reading material on your defending World Champion Cardinals.

When the opportunity comes to cover your favorite team you jump on it and that is why I’m leaving. Don’t hate me because I’m a Yankee fan, in fact please continue to follow me on Twitter and check out the site. I’ve come to learn a lot about Cardinals fans and they are just as rabid about their team as Yankees fans which made it easy to relate.

I wish the Justin and the rest of the staff at Redbird Rants all the best. It was great leading you for the last several months.

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