Short-handed Bullpen Surrenders Three Runs in 10th as Cards Lose Another Series
Struggling reliever Matt Svanson was forced into Sunday's game with Riley O'Brien (illness) and JoJo Romero (appendicitis) unavailable and he surrendered three runs and two hits in the 10th inning of a 5-3 loss to the Reds. The Cards offense mustered just seven hits.
Video Transcript
The St. Louis Cardinals lost another game and yet another series on Sunday because of a series of unfortunate, confluence of unfortunate events.
The Cardinals fell five to three to the Cincinnati Reds, lost two of three, lost the series.
When Riley O'Brien, All-Star closer Riley O'Brien was not available because of an illness.
Oliver Mermall said he showed up to the stadium not feeling well.
It got worse as the game went along, so he was unavailable.
JoJo Romero, has been on the 15-day IL with that appendicitis, so he's not available.
That forced Matt Swanson into the game.
Swanson has struggled most of the season.
He has an ERA north of seven now.
Swanson came into the game, gave up two hits, three runs, two of those earned, only retired one batter.
That allowed the Reds to score three times in that 10th inning.
Justin Brule came on, got a big strikeout of JJ Bleday, but Nathaniel Lowe reached him, looped a ball into left field.
That scored two runs.
That was the backbreaker, for the Cardinals.
On a day when Kyle Leahy pitched much better than He, he got, a fate that he didn't really deserve.
He pitched really well.
Kyle Leahy pitched six innings, only gave up two earned runs, struck out a career-best nine on this day.
Here's the fact that, that will really impress old-school Cardinal fans.
Kyle Leahy has now tied a mark set by, Cy Young Award winner Chris Carpenter in 2005.
Back in 2005, the year Carpenter won the Cy Young Award, he had a stretch of six straight starts where he gave up two runs or fewer.
That's what Leahy has now done.
Six straight starts, two or fewer.
Leahy has pitched really, really well.
He, he's become a, a rock in that, in that, in, in that staff for the Cardinals.
You know, th- this day was basically about the offense too.
I mean, the Cardinals only had seven hits.
That's just not good enough.
On a You know, they, they scored six runs in the sixth inning yesterday, Saturday.
Won seven-nothing.
Looked like their offense was coming around.
But right now, all they have is Alec Burleson a- and Ivan Herrera starting to come out of his slump.
JJ Weatherholt is struggling, pulling off of pitches pretty, pretty bad.
Jordan Walker had a quiet series.
The bottom half of the, the lineup is, i- is struggling to produce again.
So the Cardinals have to find some offense.
They have four games coming up, against the Cubs.
Cardinals are really in that shaky zone right now.
They've come out of the All-Star break.
They've lost seven out of 10 games.
They lost the series to the Diamondbacks.
They lost the series to the Angels.
They lost that makeup game to Arizona, and now they've lost another series to the Reds.
So, you know, it's incumbent on the Cardinals to get this thing together.
They've gotta put good pitching with good hitting.
Right now, it seems like they're getting one or the other.
The offense is, has really hit hard times.
You know, outside of the, the six-run sixth inning on Saturday, the offense has really had a struggle since the All-Star break.
So four coming up starting tomorrow night, against the Cubs.
The Cardinals are in this tough stretch.
They're gonna have to find a way to dig out of this if they're gonna stay in the, stay in the chase for a, for a wildcard scr- spot in the National League.
I'm John Denton with Roundtable Sports.
