The route Carlos Martinez walked between wins as a starter took him to the injured list, shoulder surgery, the bullpen and nearly back there again before he found himself Tuesday with the game in his hand and a long-awaited win to squeeze.
He did it with alacrity — and one hop of disappointment.
Unfazed by anything behind him or even an error of his own, Martinez traipsed through the Philadelphia Phillies for 7 1/3 strong innings and a 5-2 victory Tuesday at Busch Stadium. Martinez’s first win of the season was also his first win as a starter since July 7, 2019. Martinez struck out four, allowed one earned run, and limited the Phillies to two hits. When he was removed from the game in the middle of the eighth, he jumped off the mound and away as the manager approached before turning and surrendering the ball.
Alex Reyes, who has the role Martinez once manned when his shoulder wasn’t healthy enough to start, closed out the victory for his sixth save.
The Cardinals backed Martinez with a deuces-wild offense that included two doubles from Nolan Arenado, a two-run double off the top of the wall from Paul Goldschmidt, and rookie Dylan Carlson twice scoring from first on a teammate’s double. There were some defensive miscues — and then some showstoppers from the full Nolan Arenado Experience. The eight-time Gold Glove winner had a leaping snare of a liner to steal a hit, and in the third inning he raced into foul territory, lunged, cradled the ball for the catch, and then punctuated the play with a slide to keep his balance and end Bryce Harper’s at-bat.
In the second act of facing the Phillies’ Zack and Zach in back-to-back games, the Cardinals had at least seen this show before, knew some of the lines, all of the plot twists.
Zack Wheeler sped through the Cardinals’ lineup on Monday with a mix of fastballs and sliders and cutters all between 91 mph and 99 mph. The Cardinals had not faced Wheeler since April 2018, back when he was with the New York Mets. It was so long ago that Tommy Pham had a Cardinals homer against him. Their look at Zach Eflin had been more recent — less than two weeks ago. Eflin was part of the group of starters that stymied the Cardinals on the recent road trip, doing so by challenging them in the strike zone. Eflin allowed two runs on six hits through seven innings in Philly against the Cardinals for his only win of the season.
Eflin (1-1) was just as aggressive Tuesday, and the Cardinals, with a new look to their lineup since swinging through Philadelphia, pounced.
By the time Eflin had his first perfect inning the Cardinals had the lead, three runs, and six hits, including two doubles from Arenado. The Cardinals hit their way to the rallies while Martinez minimized what the Phillies do when the Cardinals nearly giftwrapped one.
Including his visit to Philadelphia this month, a handful of Martinez’s recent starts have been freckled with one frustrating inning, one inning that features a misplay or an error or a walk and then the whole thing comes unraveled. The Phillies scored six runs against the righthander in a single burst. Nine Phillies in a row reached based. And then Martinez retired the final 11 batters he faced. The six was enough for another loss. The nine consecutive was alarming.
The 11 was described later as encouraging.
“If you took away the inning in Cincinnati and the inning in Philadelphia you’d say, wow, that it’s a pretty consistent performance,” manager Mike Shildt said. “You can’t erase them. It’s not that he’s throwing harder or anything dirtier. It’s more about being able to command anything that he has and use them for quality, consistent strikes.”
As he pitched around a play not made one inning and error he made three innings later, the moments that captured how Martinez remained in control of the game came in seven-pitch increments.
The righthander had to pitch around an outfield error and his own throwing error in the fourth inning to keep the Phillies to a run and the Cardinals in the lead, 3-2. He responded to that rickety inning by retiring the side in order on seven pitches in the fifth. The Phillies player who saw the most pitches from him in that inning was the pitcher, Eflin, and he flew out on the fourth pitch from Martinez. The batters bookending the pitcher did not get the ball out of the infield, and the brevity of that inning allowed Martinez to plunge deeper into his start and be ready to handle the extended at-bat against former MVP Harper in the sixth.
Martinez (1-4) got ahead with a cutter and a fastball for a quick 0-2 count on Harper. The Phillies’ right fielder then ignored a series of pitches that tried to tease him away and out of the zone. Martinez tried a slider. Harper ignored it. Fastball. Ignored.
Slider?
Nope.
Harper fouled of an inside cutter to keep the count full and push the at-bat to its seventh pitch. That was when Martinez elevated with his swiftest fastball of the at-bat, at 95.2 mph.
Harper swung under it to end the inning.
When Martinez hit for himself in the bottom of the seventh inning, he saw Eflin’s 93rd, 94th, and 95th pitches. The Phillies righthander would throw 104 total — and not see the end of the seventh inning.
Martinez had only thrown 82 to get 21 outs.
His teammates widened the lead to give him a chance to lengthen his start.
The Cardinals tied the game almost as quickly as the Phillies had the lead in the first inning — and both teams needed a ball glancing off a glove to get the run. A sacrifice fly by the Phillies’ cleanup hitter in the first inning turned a walk and a double off shortstop Paul DeJong’s glove into a 1-0 lead. In the bottom of the inning, Carlson laced a single against the shift. He scored from first when Arenado’s line drive to left skipped off the grass and then off Brad Miller’s glove to get past him toward the track for a double.
The go-ahead rally in the second came as Andrew Knizner, at catcher with Yadier Molina on the injured list for at least the next nine games, singled to move Justin Williams into scoring position. They both scored as Tommy Edman sent a ball into the right-field corner and raced for third. Edman’s two-run hit — it was ruled a double, not a triple — snapped the 1-1 and gave Martinez all the runs he’d have as a tailwind until his final inning.
