St. Louis Cardinals: Defense Proves Costly in Extra Innings Loss

The St. Louis Cardinals defense continues to hurt them and tonight it cost them yet another game.

In a game that featured no scoring until the 8th inning, the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals put together a somewhat exciting and somewhat odd finish to a game that both teams desperately needed. In this game, the Cardinals’ defense led to another painful loss as the Cardinals dropped another home game tonight to the Royals.

After the heroics of Jhonny Peralta in the 9th, the St. Louis Cardinals were in a position to hopefully squeak out a victory in a low scoring game. However, the Cardinals had other ideas when the Royals came to bat in the 10th and 12th innings. The Cardinals sloppy defense allowed runs in both innings that shouldn’t have been allowed.

Had the meltdown in the 10th inning not happened, Stephen Piscotty‘s game-tying homer would have been walk-off and we would be sitting here talking about a game the Cardinals were able to squeak out.

In the 12th inning, Seth Maness (a pitcher who is known for pitching to contact and relying on his defense) not so shockingly gave up a hit to Whit Merrifield, the hit apparently caught the Piscotty and Pham off guard as it rolled into the gap and allowed Merrifield to take second on a hit that should have been a single.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t all of the issues with the defense in the inning. Yadier Molina continued his odd play behind the plate as he allowed a ball to get behind him and to the screen, allowing Merrifield to advance to third.

In the next at-bat, Maness gave up more contact as Alcides Escobar sent one down the line in right that Stephen Piscotty was unable to get to with an odd sliding attempt and Merrifield came home to give the Royals the lead.

The Cardinals’ offense was unable to continue their heroics and they went down in order in the bottom half of the twelfth inning. So, now we have yet another home loss for the St. Louis Cardinals and yet another good Carlos Martinez start wasted by the offense.

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The St. Louis Cardinals will be looking for yet another split in the Royals’ series tomorrow night as Mike Leake looks to get going after his rough start against the Mariners last weekend. Hopefully, we will be talking about a Cardinals’ win tomorrow night, as these losses are starting to pile up and become all too apparent for this team.