WASHINGTON — Monday night, they feast.
The Cardinals’ on again, off again, shutout again offense roared in its rematch with Washington Nationals righthander Joe Ross. Five games after Ross riddled the Cardinals and set the stage for a run of frustrating games against righthanded pitchers, the Cardinals answered with 10 runs against him on the way to a 12-5 thumping at Nationals Park. Paul DeJong hit a grand slam to chase Ross in the fifth inning and give the Cardinals a 10-2 lead at the time.
DeJong finished with two homers and five RBIs to go with three runs, and it was his production in the middle of the order that made the Cardinals’ lineup relentless.
They scored in five innings.
They got home runs from three sources, including leadoff hitter Tommy Edman and No. 2 hitter Paul Goldschmidt. Every spot in the order except for the pitcher’s had at least a hit or a run scored against Ross (1-1). And the pitcher, Jack Flaherty, dropped down two successful sacrifice bunts, including one for an RBI. It was the kind of onrush of offense that has been followed by struggle. Washington has a lefty waiting for them Tuesday.
Flaherty improved to 3-0 by pitching six innings and allowing five runs on six hits and two walks. He struck out five and needed 107 pitches to get 18 outs.
The game was such a landslide that for the second time in a week Nationals infielder Hernan Perez pitched.
Flaherty became the swiftest Cardinals pitcher in club history to reach 500 strikeouts by appearances. By fanning Yan Gomes to start the third inning, Flaherty had 500 in his 80th appearance. The previous record had been set by Lance Lynn, who got his 500th strikeout in his 101st appearance. Bob Gibson, the standard for all Cardinals’ starters, reached the number in his 110th appearance. Flaherty added to his total immediately by slipping a slider past No. 8 hitter Victor Robles.
The Cardinals’ opening-day starter had retired all eight Nationals he faced until pitcher Ross flipped a single to left. That started the slow undoing of Flaherty’s pitch count.
He walked the leadoff batter in the fourth. He allowed two runs, one on a sacrifice fly, in that inning.
A quick fifth was followed by a difficult sixth. An error by Nolan Arenado started what became a three-run rally against Flaherty. He allowed three hits, including two doubles, and before retiring his final batter of the evening he received a visit from Shildt. The Cardinals' manager did not remove him, just met with him briefly on the mound. Flaherty got the final out of the inning, left a runner stranded, and completed his second quality start of the season thanks to the three unearned runs.
He has both Cardinals’ quality starts through 16 games.
He is the only starter with an out in the sixth inning.
The Cardinals' other outbursts of runs in the past week were notable for who they came against as much as how many runs they scored. They capitalized on Washington righthander Stephen Strasburg and his compromised fastball. Despite insisting he was fine physically after the start, Strasburg went on the injured list Monday because of inflammation in the same shoulder he was massaging after his appearance at Busch Stadium.
Last weekend in Philadelphia, the Cardinals pounced on lefty Matt Moore the inning after he was seen wincing and reaching for his back after a swing. Moore was removed after he uncorked a wild curve ball.
The Cardinals already had scored six runs off him.
Ross offered the Cardinals their first chance to test their ability to adjust in a short window. The Cards were set to face the righthander for the second time in five games, and he had set the template for the starters who stymied them all week. Ross, brother of former Cardinals’ pitcher Tyson Ross, tested the Cardinals in the strike, or “hit his spots,” as Shildt said. He walked the first batter of that game and then pitched six shutout innings.
The Nationals’ righthander extended his streak of scoreless innings to 12 to starts this season. He inched it two outs in the second.
And then DeJong shattered it.
What had been missing from the Cardinals’ outpouring of runs — when they have happened at all — was the sustained rallies, the rolling rallies, the inning-by-inning pileup of rallies. DeJong’s first homer gave the Cardinals’ a 1-0 lead. Back-to-back homers in the third contributed to a three-run rally in the third, and in the fourth DeJong walked to set up RBIs from Matt Carpenter and, on a bunt, Flaherty.
With three rallies in three innings, the Cardinals had as many against Ross as they had in their previous 40 innings combined.
They pressed on.
With DeJong’s second career grand slam as the centerpiece, the Cardinals’ five-run fifth inning gave them as many in that one stretch as they had total in the two 2019 NLCS games at Nationals Park. The Cardinals nearly doubled their total runs scored in that historically meek offensive playoff performance with the 11 they had through five innings.
Ross started the game with a 0.00 ERA.
After 4 1/3 innings it had ballooned to 5.87.
