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Cardinals Waste Rookie's Strong Outing, Miss Out on Sweeping Dodgers After Late Collapse
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- Cardinals Waste Rookie's Strong Outing, Miss Out on Sweeping Dodgers After Late Collapse
Roundtable Sports' John Denton breaks down a strong start by Cardinals' rookie left-hander Quinn Mathews, and how the bullpen failed him in a 3-2 loss to the Dodgers,
Regardless of how Quinn Mathews' first big-league seasonfinishes up over the final month of the regular season, the Cardinals' 6-foot-6left-hander will always be able to boast about outpitchingtwo-time Cy Young award winner Tarik Skubal at Dodger Stadium.
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Mathews allowed just four hits and one earned run over fiveinnings, but he had little to show for it as the Dodgers rallied in the ninth inning to walk-off the Cardinals and ruin the night for St. Louis and its rookie left-hander on Thursday.
Teoscar Hernandez doubled in two runs in the bottom of the ninth off Cardinals closer Riley O'Brien and the Dodgers to beat St. Louis 3-2 and avoid a sweep at Dodger Stadium.
Rookie Cade Winquest and veterans Ryan Stanek and George Soriano silenced thestruggling Dodgers (83-57) for three innings to keep the25-year-old Mathews in line for a win. Soriano walked three batters in the eighth inning, but he gotout of the jam by striking out Dalton Rushing. In the ninth inning, O'Brien opened the ninth inning by retiring Alex Freeland on a long fly ball. However, Tommy Edman reached O'Brien for his fourth hit, Mookie Betts walked and Hernandez smoked a 3-2 into the left-center gap that brought in the tying and winning runs.
Prior to Hernandez's hit, theDodgers had been 0 for 8 while hitting with runners in scoring position and LA had left 10runners on base. Hernandez changed all of that as O'Brien dropped to 3-7 and blew his sixth save opportunity of the season.
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Ivan Herrera, Jordan Walker and rookie Leo Bernal had two hits for the Cardinals, who pounded out 12 hits with 11 of them being singles. Edman, a former Cardinals standout batting leadoff in place of the resting Shohei Ohtani, had four of LA's six hits on Thursday night.
Mathews, who was saddled with a no-decision, has held the opposition to two runs or fewerin four of his five MLB starts. He's allowed just one run three times, which isa good thing considering that he's gotten no more than three runs of support inany of his starts.
"There's definitely a lot of positives to take away because they have world-class hitters, we're at their place and they are the back-to-back champs," Mathews told Cardinals TV after the defeat. "To get through that with five (innings) and one (earned run), that's not a bad day at all. I just think from my expectations of myself, there's a lot we'll look at tomorrow and go back to work on. It was an ugly day (with four walks), but one I would take most of the time."
Teetering on the edge of falling out of the chase for aWild Card spot, the Cardinals (70-71) won the first two games of the series and came within two outs of their first sweep at Dodger Stadium since 2018. The Cards rolled to a 13-8 win on Tuesday nightby bashing five homers and they prevailed 8-6 in 10 innings on Wednesday byrallying back from 3-0 and 5-2 deficits. On Thursday, the Cards got to Skubalfor 10 hits, but lost because of a leaky bullpen.
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Skubal, MLB's biggest prize on the move before the MLBTrade Deadline, was dealt from Detroit to Los Angeles on Aug. 2. He came intoThursday just 1-2 with a 3.00 ERA in five starts – that one win coming againsthis former Tigers' teammates on Aug. 28.
The Cardinals set the tone for their aggressive approachagainst Skubal by singling three times in the first inning alone. Joshua Baez,one of the heroes from Wednesday night with his two late-game doubles, drilledthe ball the other way to score Jose Fermin in the first inning to give theCards a 1-0 lead.
The Cards added to their lead in the third inning when theystacked three more singles – the final one from Ramon Urias to plate IvanHerrera. Urias' eighth hit tied Skubal's season high for hits allowed in a gamethis season.
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The Cardinals had at least one hit in five of the sixinnings started by Skubal. Walker had a hard-hit single off Skubal in the fifthinning, but he got picked off first base by the left-hander. Bernal, who hithis first MLB homer on Wednesday night, drilled a 105-mph single back towardthe Dodgers' star left-hander for the Cards' 10th hit off Skubal –all of them being singles.
Mathews, who grew up in Aliso Viejo and about 50 milessouth of Los Angeles, lived out his boyhood dream of pitching at Dodger Stadium.He pitched out of a two-on, one-out jam in the first inning by getting FreddieFreeman to fly out and Will Smith to whiff on a 94.4 mph four-seam fastball. Then,in the third inning, he pitched out of a bases loaded jam by getting WorldSeries hero Miguel Rojas to line to third base.
The lone run surrendered by Mathews came in the fifthinning when Tommy Edman doubles and came around to score when Pedro Pagessurrendered a passed ball when a high sinker deflected off his glove. But Mathewslimited the damage by again retiring Freeman and Smith to end the fifth inning.
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Mathews threw 99 pitches, 52 of them for strikes. He struckout four, but he also walked four. He leaned heavily on his four-seam fastball thefirst two times through the order, and then he went to his changeup more thethird time battling the Dodgers' star-studded lineup.
