NEW YORK – It wasn’t the swing that he’s been working on or the moment that he’s been chasing during this slow start, but it was enough to get the single run the Cardinals needed.
Unable Tuesday to help the Cardinals with his bat in Game 1 or get them out of an inning with his glove in Game 2, Tyler O’Neill used his speed to outrun a groundout and get the Cardinals a split Tuesday in a doubleheader against the New York Mets at Citi Field. Rookie Brendan Donovan walked to first, stole second, and advanced to third on a passed ball to put the go-ahead run 90 feet away from a potential win.
O’Neill didn’t even get a full cut at Mets reliever Adam Ottavino's pitch, but he clipped the baseball enough to get it hopping toward third.
O’Neill, who has elite sprint speed, dashed from the box as third baseman Eduardo Escobar went to make the play for the inning's final out.
He bobbled the ball.
That was all O'Neill needed.
O’Neill beat the throw to first base, and that meant Donovan’s run from third counted, snapping a tie and sending the Cardinals to a 4-3 victory in the evening game of the doubleheader. The Mets had capitalized on an error in Game 1 for two early runs that became a 3-1 victory. Each game was decided as much by what the teams gave away as what the teams took. The Mets tied Game 3, 3-3, in the bottom of the eighth despite the Cardinals twice coming close to getting an out to end the inning.
In the top of the ninth, Ottavino struck out pinch-hitter Nolan Arenado for what appeared to be the turning point of the inning. But the passed ball that put Donovan at third proved costly when Escobar could not make the clean play on O’Neill’s grounder.
The Mets got the tying run into scoring position in the ninth inning and the top of their order back to the plate. Cardinals closer Giovanny Gallegos struck out No. 3 hitter Francisco Lindor to secure the one-run win and his seventh save of the season.
Gallegos struck out the final two batters he faced.
The Cardinals’ misplaced the lead in the bottom of the eighth despite reliever Ryan Helsley getting a strikeout that should have ended the inning. Helsley got a pitch past Eduardo Escobar’s bat – but it didn’t stay in Andrew Knizner’s mitt.
The Cardinals’ catcher lifted his glove as if to show the umpire he had maintained control of the pitch for the strikeout, only to realize it was not there.
It was bounding toward the backstop.
The passed ball allowed Escobar to reach first instead of head with his teammates to the dugout for their gloves. The prolonged inning became a game-tying run with Jeff McNeil’s two-out single to left field. Twice in that eighth inning the Cardinals had a play not made for an out that would have preserved their one run lead. Left fielder O’Neill and third baseman Brendan Donovan converged on a popup in foul territory but did not make the catch, and there was the miss by Knizner. The fallout was a tie game.
A series that could yet have some cayenne showed no early signs of any lingering issues between the teams. In St. Louis late last month, the final game of the Mets’ visit ended with a benches-clearing, bullpen-emptying fracas in the infield that also featured Stubby Clapp’s takedown of Mets’ slugger Pete Alonso. Arenado, who sparked the brouhaha by challenging a Mets pitcher about an up-and-in fastball, was booed every time he came to the plate Tuesday by the Mets faithful, whether the game was close or not, whether there was a runner on base or not.
On the field, there was little hint of history between the teams.
But there was a nod.
After Alonso finished throwing warmup grounders to his teammates for the top of the first inning, he called out to Cardinals first-base coach Clapp and pointed at him. He gave him a fist pump. Clapp replied with a nod and a similar fist pump. Peace at hand.
The Mets started Game 2 with a homer of starter Steven Matz for a 1-0 lead, and then Paul Goldschmidt took over. The Cardinals’ first baseman, who had a home run in Game 1 to extend the Cardinals’ streak to 12 consecutive with at least one, had this in his first three at-bats of Game 2. He had RBI doubles in back-to-back innings to push the Cardinals’ lead out to 3-2. Tommy Edman wedged a triple in the middle of them to produce the Cardinals’ other RBI.
On May 17 a year ago, Goldschmidt had a .709 OPS and a .302 on-base percentage sweetened slightly by a .408 slugging percentage. He was providing RBIs, but searching for the damage that would arrive in the second half and elevate him into the MVP discussion.
On May 17 this year, after his second double and his 13th of the season, he had a .941 OPS.
When rookie right-hander Andre Pallante walked the bases loaded in exchange for only one out from the Mets, the Cardinals faced a pivotal decision in Game 2’s sixth inning.
The way the first game of the day played out, manager Oliver Marmol had his full complement of relievers available to him. Even Nick Wittgren, always-ready right-hander, needed one pitch to get his assigned out in Game 1. To replace Pallante, Marmol could have called on lefty T. J. McFarland for a groundball or closer-in-the-making Helsley for the strikeout, or even opted for Giovanny Gallegos. After a momentary delay to buy his choice more time, Marmol brought in lefty Genesis Cabrera.
He inherited three runners on base.
He had a one-run lead to protect.
He had two outs to get.
It took him four pitches to keep the scoreboard exactly as he got it.
With his first three pitches, Cabrera struck out Escobar to regain control of the inning. Cabrera’s next pitch – a curveball – Jeff McNeil popped up to end the inning.
Cabrera’s escape did more than save Pallante’s ERA from ballooning, it carried what Matz started for another inning. In his return to Queens for the first time as a Cardinal, the former Met and recent free-agent target of the Mets pitched five innings and allowed two runs. Both of the runs came on solo homers.
Matz minimized the trouble those homers could cause by not walking a batter in in five innings. He struck out seven, including the final three Mets he faced. He struck out six of the final 11 batters he faced, and not once in his five innings did he face more than four batters. Other than the homers, the Mets had little working against Matz. In the third inning, Brandon Nimmo doubled and Mark Canha worked Matz for a 10-pitch at-bat. But the 10th pitch was a fly out to end the inning.
Miles Mikolas made it possible for the Cardinals to be aggressive with the bullpen in Game 2 with their choice of matchups. The right-hander covered six innings during Game 1 and allowed three runs (two earned). Like Matz, he struck out seven.
Like Matz, he had a lengthy at-bat against a Met.
The third batter Mikolas faced in the afternoon game, McNeil, took him through 12 pitches. Mikolas eventually retired McNeil, but he did spend several innings after all time from the stretch looking for his tempo. He also had to switch up some pitch sequences because it became clear early that the Mets were well-prepared for how he was going to pitch them.
“The tempo thing would be more of a tempo within my delivery,” Mikolas said between games. “Getting out of the stretch early and having to throw a lot of the pitches out of the stretch made it a little stressful. It was not great for tempo.”
Two of the three runs the Mets got on Mikolas came from a pair of doubles that followed an error in the third inning. Those runs were enough as starter Trevor Williams struck out six Cardinals in four innings and set the tone for the relievers that covered the rest of the game. When the Cardinals reached the ninth inning of Game 1, they had 10 strikeouts. Two Cardinals would strike out three times in the game. Mets closer Edwin Diaz struck out the first two batters he faced in the ninth before O’Neill singled to get the tying run to the plate.
Brendan Donovan walked to put the tying run on.
Harrison Bader struck out to end the game – with the 13th strikeout of Game 1.
