PHOENIX — Without the blitz of early runs they’d counted on all weekend or semblance of the fine-tuned play they expect, the Cardinals saw Sunday what it’s like to look up from the hole they’ve dug.
And dug in a little deeper.
A holiday lineup and getaway game with a chance to sweep the reeling Arizona Diamondbacks came apart on the Cardinals in the middle innings. A mix of errors, misplays, and, of course, their signature bases-loaded walk, escorted Arizona to a 9-2 victory at Chase Field. Arizona scored nine unanswered runs to end their losing streak at 13 consecutive games. The Cardinals failed to sweep a four-game series – what would have been their fourth consecutive series sweep against a losing team.
For starter Kwang Hyun Kim the game spun in the fourth as he tried to dodge trouble and keep the score tied, 2-2. Ketel Marte had homered in the third inning with a 457-foot shot to center that knotted the game. The lineup bent back around to bring him up in the fourth with the bases loaded. Marte fouled off five pitches, ignored at least two others in the dirt, and saw nine total in the at-bat. He laced the ninth for a two-run single past a diving Jose Rondon to break the tie and begin the Cardinals’ undoing.
Kim would pitch another inning – a scoreless fifth – before turning the game over to the bullpen and lefty Tyler Webb. Less than 24 hours after Webb carried a lead through a high-leverage spot in the eighth inning Saturday, the sixth swallowed him. An error started the trouble. A single followed. Five batters into the inning and Webb would walk Carson Kelly with the bases loaded to force home a run.
That was the Cardinals’ 14th bases-load walk of the season. Since 1974, that is the second-most they’ve had for an entire season.
It’s not yet June.
Webb would leave the bases loaded for Jake Woodford to deal with, and all three of those runners would score as Arizona turned a close game into a rout. Ten Diamondbacks came to the plate in the sixth, five scored, and they were all helped along by two errors, two walks, and two bloop singles, each of which dropped just out of reach of two Cardinals.
The Cardinals went with a lineup that lacked subtlety and didn’t hide its timing.
It was the fourth game of a series that Cardinals had already won. It was a day game after night game. And it was on the road. It was almost the midpoint of 17 games in 17 days. All those ingredients led to the strange brew of a getaway lineup that featured one player making his first start with the Cardinals (infielder Jose Rondon), five position players who have fewer than 110 games in the majors apiece, and four position players batting less than .200.
That group included Matt Carpenter returning to his leadoff spot to get Tommy Edman his first day off the season. Carpenter doubled twice in a game for the first time since he had four during a game in August 2018.
The lack of so many regulars showed up in ragged moments for the lineup and in the field. The fill-ins on the left side of the infield, Rondon and shortstop Edmundo Sosa, both committed errors in the Diamondbacks’ five-run sixth inning that widened their lead.
Sosa, who has been mostly superb with Paul DeJong recovering from a fractured rib, ran into an out on the bases in the sixth when he passed first on an overthrow and then rounded into fair territory to return to the base. When the ball ricocheted back to first baseman Christian Walker he was there to tag Sosa because the rookie had, by rule, tried to advance to second.
So it went for the Cardinals’ offense throughout the game.
In the first inning, rookie Dylan Carlson drilled his first home run since April 7. The switch-hitter had three homers in the opening weeks of the season, and then, even after the move up to No. 2 in the order, had gone almost eight weeks without one. Carlson’s homer reached the pool beyond right field at Chase Field, but the rest of the inning was underwater for the Cardinals. Peacock struck out the other batters. Andrew Knizner’s double produced a run in the second inning for a 2-0 lead. Two groundouts kept that inning from flourishing. In the seventh, back-to-back singles opened the inning and then Lane Thomas grounded into a double play to end the rally before it even started.
Similarly in the eighth, Carpenter opened with a leadoff double to right-center field. Carlson singled for his second hit of the game.
And then nothing.
Two strikeouts and a groundout and the score had not changed.
