St. Louis Cardinals salvage finale behind Michael Wacha

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Final. 1. 7. 6. 33

Wacha wins seventh as Cardinals cruise

The way things are going, the St. Louis Cardinals won’t have to worry about too many long losing streaks.

As long as Michael Wacha is on the hill, the Cardinals will do just fine.

Wacha gave up one unearned run and five hits as the Cardinals defeated the Kansas City Royals, 6-1, on Sunday at Kauffman Stadium. Wacha improved to 7-0 with the victory, and he became the first Cardinal hurler to start 7-0 since Matt Morris began the 2005 season with eight straight wins.

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St. Louis ran its record to 28-16 overall and gained a bit of ground on the Chicago Cubs, who had a game with the Arizona Diamondbacks in progress at the time the Cardinal game finished. Chicago will be behind by either 2 1/2 or 3 1/2 games.

This was a game where all of the Cardinals helped Wacha’s cause. Seven of the nine regulars had at least one hit with Kolten Wong, Jhonny Peralta, and Matt Adams all adding two hits apiece. Matt Carpenter had his eighth home run of the season.

Wacha struck out four and walked two in seven innings of work, with Kevin Siegrist and Trevor Rosenthal finishing out the game with one inning apiece.

All in all, the Cardinals recovered nicely from the first two games of this series, which saw Chris Young shut out St. Louis in game one and rain hamper the team’s winning effort in Saturday’s clash. It provided St. Louis with enough of a boost to go into the final week of May.

Up Next:

The Cardinals go east on I-70 to begin another homestand, and it starts with three games against the Diamondbacks on Monday at 4:15 p.m.

Chase Anderson (1-1, 2.54 ERA) takes the mound for Arizona, and the Cardinals counter with Carlos Martinez (4-2, 4.08).

Next: St. Louis Cardinals' MLB Draft Preview: Kevin Newman