The St. Louis Cardinals are more than halfway through their nine-game road trip, and it hasn’t been boring.
The Cardinals took two of three against the Los Angeles Dodgers, missing a sweep by one pitch, and then rallied to win 7-6 on Friday night in the opener against the Colorado Rockies.
After Saturday’s 10-7 loss dropped the Cardinals to 3-2 on the trip, they’ll vie for a series win over the Rockies on Sunday afternoon when the teams reconvene in Denver.
St. Louis’ Kyle Leahy (10-4, 3.13 ERA) will match up with Colorado’s Tanner Gordon (1-4, 5.18) in a battle of right-handers.
Leahy, who grew up near Denver, is 2-0 with a 4.05 ERA in six appearances (one start) against his hometown team.
The Cardinals (71-72) are on the fringe of the National League wild-card race. They are four games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks, who sit in the third and final spot.
The most dramatic win came Friday night when Ivan Herrera hit a three-run homer in the ninth inning to turn a 6-4 deficit into a 7-6 victory, and it came after manager Oliver Marmol was ejected in the sixth.
Marmol stood up for his pitcher, Hancel Rincon, who made his major league debut, after home plate umpire Doug Eddings directed the rookie to straighten his cap.
“He took it upon himself to tell our rookie pitcher the kid’s ‘not going to wear his hat on my field that way,'” Marmol said. “You got Dontrelle Willis, CC Sabathia, Pedro Strop — plenty of guys that have worn it way more tilted. I have an issue with that. That’s just a power-hungry move, in my opinion.”
The Rockies (55-87) are trying to finish with a winning record on their six-game homestand.
Despite having the worst record in the NL, they have generated excitement. Colorado has surpassed last season’s win total (43) and holds a 17-22 record in one-run games.
“I was doing some reflection and was very curious to see how many games we’ve lost by one or two runs — that number is 43,” outfielder Mickey Moniak said. “That’s not counting the three-run, four-run, even five-run games we felt we were in. But if you look back to last year, we lost 119 games, and I’d be very curious to see how many of those were by two or fewer runs, and I would venture to say not a lot of them.”
There has been a slew of close games for the Rockies over the last week — seven in a row were decided by one or two runs before Saturday night.
Gordon was on the mound for the last comfortable win, a 13-1 victory at Washington on Aug. 26. He is facing St. Louis for the second time this season. He took the loss after allowing two runs in 3 1/3 innings at Busch Stadium on Aug. 9.
Overall, he is 1-1 with a 1.93 ERA against the Cardinals in three appearances (one start).
–Field Level Media
