The Cardinals, who hold a whopping major league lead in walks issued by pitchers, yielded just two free passes, both by reliever Daniel Ponce de Leon, on Thursday night. But Adam Wainwright, who didn’t walk anybody in a generally stout seven innings, hit two consecutive hitters in the first inning, extending the Cardinals’ lead in that department, too.
One of Ponce de Leon’s walks in the eighth scored after a double by Tucker Barnhart. The second of Wainwright’s total of three hit batsmen forced home a run. And, although Wainwright was touched otherwise only by a two-run homer by Jesse Winker in the second and although the Cardinals turned in several standout defensive plays, the free bases contributed significantly to the Reds’ 4-2 victory at Busch Stadium.
Wainwright, teaming with battery mate Yadier Molina for a 284th start, fourth on the all-time list, allowed just four hits over his final five innings and he kept the game from going sideways in the first.
With the bases loaded, one out and a run in, first baseman Matt Carpenter, giving Paul Goldschmidt a night off, charged Mike Freeman’s grounder and threw to Molina for a forceout. Then Wainwright induced Tucker Barnhart to fly to left, stranding three.
Before Thursday, Wainwright hadn’t allowed a run at home over his previous 19 innings.
The Cardinals’ first two outs in the first inning both were productive ones as they rallied for their two runs.
After Tommy Edman singled and stole his 11th base of he season, Dylan Carlson moved Edman to third with a right-side groundout to second base.
Tyler O’Neill then extended his hitting streak to 11 games with a run-scoring single to left. O’Neill also moved up on Nolan Arenado’s groundout to third base and scored on a two-out single by Molina.
That, however, represented most of the Cardinals’ situational hitting for the night. They had only one runner in scoring position after the first inning until Carpenter singled and Edmundo Sosa bunted for a hit in the ninth. But Jose Rondon, not used to sacrificing (he has one in 281 big-league at-bats), bunted into a double play.
Pinch hitter Paul Goldschmidt as Lucas Sims pitched around him and Edman struck out to end the game.
Wainwright needed an abnormally high total of 50 pitches to cover the first two innings and by the time he got to that level, he was behind again. With a man at first and two out in the second, Winker jumped a 3-1 curveball and roped it 425 feet into the right-field seats and a 3-2 Cincinnati lead.
Wainwright pitched around a leadoff double by Jonathan India in the fourth when pitcher Vladimir Gutierrez couldn’t push his sacrifice bunt farther out in front of the plate and India couldn’t advance as Carpenter, picking up the ball, looked India back to second and threw to first.
Eugenio Suarez, the next hitter, belted what would have been a sacrifice fly to center had Gutierrez moved India to third.
But Gutierrez was much stronger with a ball in his hand than a bat. He set down 10 batters in succession from the first through the fourth.
The Cardinals’ defense assisted Wainwright again in the fifth. After Tyler Stephenson had singled to left, Tyler Naquin doubled over the head of Carlson in center. But the rookie perfectly fielded the carom off the wall and fired to second baseman Edman, who cut down the slow-running Stephenson trying to score from first.
Molina applied the tag and then caught strike three which Freeman observed for the final out of the inning and it was still was 3-2.
Wainwright (3-5) left after throwing 105 pitches, three of which, of course, made contact with Reds jerseys for a career high. But after half a hundred of those pitches were launched in the first two innings, only 55 were tossed in the next five.
In the end, the Cardinals could only go home and catch up on their sleep. Their aircraft arrived here from Los Angeles at 5:15 o’clock Thursday morning.
