Cardinals defense shines, offense picks up in wild series with Cubs

This series had pretty much everything, as a series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs should.

From defensive gems to a pick up in offense to jaw-dropping blunders, it was a crazy series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs.

The Cardinals won Monday 8-3, Wednesday and Thursday 3-2, each. The Cardinals lost a heartbreaker to the Cubs Tuesday 7-6.

Let’s discuss the good, bad, and ugly of it all.

The Good

The team came up with some tremendous defense and some great offense throughout the series.

On Monday, Dylan Carlson started the offense in the third with a single to center to score Harrison Bader. In the fourth, Paul DeJong reached on a fielding error by Javy Baez to score Tyler O’Neill. Bader reached on a fielder’s choice from Baez, who committed a throwing error, allowing Yadier Molina to score. Carlson walked to score Tommy Edman. Paul Goldschmidt singled to score DeJong.

Carlson hit his eighth homer of the season to score DeJong.

That was followed up by Goldschmidt’s 16th homer of the season.

Jake Woodford pitched well in his first start going 5.2 innings, giving up six hits and one run. He struck out six. He is now 2-1.

On Tuesday, Carlson jump-started the offense again hitting a double to score Bader in the third. In the fourth, Nolan Arenado hit his 18th homer of the season. Bader singled to score Molina and Johan Oviedo singled to score DeJong. In the sixth, Edman launched his sixth homer of the season and Jose Rondon was all smiles as he hit his first homer of the season.

Oviedo pitched five innings, gave up three hits, one walk and only one earned run while striking out five. He pitched great and should have gotten his first win of the season. Make sure to head down to the ugly section to find out what happened.

On Wednesday, Bader kicked off the scoring in the seventh inning with a double to score DeJong. Carlson doubled to score Bader, to make it 2-1.

On to the tenth inning, Molina knocked a single to score Goldschmidt. After the past two ninth innings, it was wonderful to see Molina step up and help the team.

Adam Wainwright pitched seven innings, giving up six hits and one run, while striking out five. Due to a bad outing from Giovanny Gallegos discussed in the ugly section, Wainwright didn’t get the victory. T.J. McFarland earned his first win of the season pitching the ninth inning, only giving up a walk.

Bader also had this amazing catch Wednesday:

On Thursday, Carlson knocked his ninth home run of the season in his first at-bat of the game. In the third inning, Arenado hit his 19th homer of the season, scoring Carlson.

Kwang Hyun Kim pitched an excellent six innings on his birthday, giving up two hits and two earned runs. Ryan Helsley held the game pitching a one-hit inning. T.J. McFarland picked an inning giving up a walk and striking out one. Alex Reyes had a return to form pitching the ninth, walking on and striking out two. He was emotional earning his 23rd save of the season.

The Bad

Edmundo Sosa took a 95 mph fastball from Cubs pitcher Dillon Maples off his helmet in the bottom of the seventh inning of Thursday’s game. He collapsed and Busch Stadium fell silent. Sosa somehow managed to get up and gather himself to take first base.

Sosa remained in the game even starting a nifty double play in the eighth inning. It was amazing to see him remain in the game after seeing him collapse.

In other things bad, it’s easy to say Manager Mike Shildt being ejected from the game Wednesday arguing with home plate umpire Jeff Nelson was bad, or the number of batters left on base throughout the series, or Molina not going full effort to make a play in the ninth of Tuesday’s game before things got out of hand was bad but the ugly is just too ugly. So let’s discuss the ugly.

The Ugly

Tuesday’s game was great until the ninth inning. Then things got incredibly ugly.

Incredibly.

Alex Reyes was brought in to clean things up after Luis Garcia walked to load the bases. The results were not what Cardinal fans were wanting. Sergio Alcantara walked to score Patrick Wisdom. Bases remained loaded. Anthony Rizzo was walked to score Nico Hoerner. Bases remained loaded. Baez then singled to score Jake Marisnick and Alcantara.

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It was 6-5 Cardinals with Ian Happ coming to bat.

Happ did what Happ does against the Cardinals and doubled to right scoring Rizzo and Baez.

The team got a case of PTSD and had a crazy ninth again on Wednesday.

The normally steady Giovanny Gallegos in to pitch the ninth with the score 2-1 Cardinals. Eric Sogard knocked a double to score Hoerner.

In Conclusion

The Cardinals did win this series taking three of four from the Cubbies to move to 49-48 on the season. The Cards are now in third place. They are a half-game behind the Reds who are 49-47. The Cardinals are heading to Cincinnati to play the Reds in a three-game set at Great American Ballpark.

While the Cubs series was important, the coming series with the Reds is just as, if not a bit more, important. Here’s to a successful series for the Cardinals in Cincinnati.