St. Louis Cardinals: Sleepy Loss in San Diego

The St. Louis Cardinals managed all of six hits in a 4-1 snoozer that pushed into the midnight hour, St. Louis time.

After salvaging the final game in their series with Chicago, a game that featured a three-hour-plus rain delay, the St. Louis Cardinals dropped the series opener with San Diego last night, erm, this morning (game ended at 12:15 central time).

Adam Wainwright (0-2) was better than he’s been so far this season, although the breaking ball still caught way too much plate, far too often.

San Diego first baseman Will Myers provided the bulk of the offense for the Padres club that came into the game 19th in baseball in runs scored.

In the bottom of the first, Myers jumped on a first-pitch, belt high fastball and drove it 400+ feet to right center.

After driving in pitcher Andrew Cashner in the bottom of the third with a sacrifice fly, Myers bit reliever Seth Maness for an rbi double in the bottom of the 7th to push San Diego’s advantage to 4-1.

That score would hold as the Cardinals stranded runners in scoring position in the first, fifth and seventh innings.

Matt Adams struck out three times in four at-bats. Matt Carpenter had a tough night, striking out twice himself and committing another error at third base. Outside of a Randal Grichuk solo home run in top of the fourth, the Cardinals were without an extra base hit for the evening.

Despite the snoozy performance from the offense, the Cardinals are still second in baseball in runs scored, of course, thanks to the nine-game stretch prior to the Chicago series.

Wainwright was somewhat of a tough luck loser, although it was apparent all night long that things still weren’t locked in like they usually are for the staff leader.

More often than not, the curveball from Wainwright was spinning and in the middle of the plate. Were he not pitching in San Diego, against a very mediocre offense, I hate to say that he may have given up more than three earned over six.

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It was just kind of an off night in what’s been a strange, roller coaster-ish type of a season as we move towards the final week of April.

Jeremy Hazelbaker was the final strike out victim in the bottom of the ninth, and it’s pretty safe to say that he’s cooled off from the torrid run that he was on.

Kolten Wong made a couple of very fine plays behind Waino, although the rest of the St. Louis defense would have qualified as shaky at best.

With the Cubs winning in Cincinnati earlier tonight, erm, last night, the Cardinals drop to four back in the Central race and .500 at 8-8 roughly 10% of the way into the campaign.

It’s late, even here operating on mountain time, so no rambling to be had by this writer tonight.

The Cardinals have looked shaky against quality competition. They’ve torched the weaker competition, outside of San Diego tonight.

Next: Stay Optimistic in 2016

There is promise in what we’ve seen against the Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Atlanta’s of the world. But if it doesn’t start happening, at least in a “happy medium” sort of way (compared to the 14 scored runs in seven games against Pittsburgh, Chicago, San Diego) then I’m concerned about what that NL Central deficit could be a month from now.