St. Louis Cardinals Go Boom to Beat Pirates

The St. Louis Cardinals used the long ball to put the Pittsburgh Pirates behind the eight ball in the Wild Card race tonight and it worked like a dream.

The St. Louis Cardinals absolutely blasted the Pittsburgh Pirates tonight. Entering the ninth inning, my confidence was at zero that this team would make a comeback against the very reliable Tony Watson. The St. Louis Cardinals and their frequent longball ability had different plans tonight.

When you think about a roller coaster victory, this is exactly what you would expect. The St. Louis Cardinals got things started off with a bang. Yadier Molina promptly unloaded the bases in the first with an opposite field grand slam home run over the high wall in right field.

Matt Adams would extend the lead to five in the third inning with a monster home run that wound up in the Alleghany River. However, the roller coaster that followed was the St. Louis Cardinals pitching subtly giving up their five-run lead in the next two innings. 

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The Pirates’ pitching somehow decided they had enough of the Cardinals’ players circling the pillows and shut them down for the next four innings. It seemed like your typical Cardinals’ loss was about to happen

I got out of the car after the top half of the inning and had no desire to turn the game on. This was because I had a feeling that it was just going to be another loss. However, I did turn it on. I saw Jedd Gyorko swing at a pitch that looked like it was a foot off of the plate and knew what would start to happen next.

Seeing as I just got home from work, I had things to take care of. However, a message from my fellow editor Michael Miles brought me back to the television to see what had happened. To my surprise, the game was now tied..

Matt Carpenter continued the St. Louis Cardinals’ ridiculous season of hitting pinch-hit homers and we had ourselves a new ballgame. Surprisingly enough, the Cardinals decided that their two homers in 46 games against Tony Watson just wasn’t enough as Randal Grichuk‘s two-run blast gave the Cardinals the lead.

Jhonny Peralta still wasn’t comfortable with the lead and he didn’t let Yadier Molina be the only Cardinal hitter to go “oppo taco” as he smoked a solo jack to right field. This brought the Cardinals’ home run total on the night to five, which is pretty stellar.

This roller coaster win was huge for the Cardinals. The New York Mets won again tonight and a win against the Cardinals tonight could have given the Pittsburgh Pirates new life in the Wild Card race. It would have put them just 3.5 games back and now they are 5.5 games back and staring at a tough hole to come back from to make their fourth straight appearance in the Wild Card game.

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Tonight’s win hopefully will propel this team to finish off a big sweep against the Pirates tomorrow and lead into a good finish to the season. This team continues to come up with big wins and continues to slug the long ball. As this team gets healthier, I think that this team is only becoming more dangerous.