ST. LOUIS — One day after insisting he wasn’t ready to move on from this season just yet, Nolan Arenado drove the Cardinals to a place they’ve rarely been at all this year.
Arenado, who said Monday late night that he hasn’t “got time for thinking about next year” when he’s trying still to win this year, hammered a 0-1 fastball into the left-field seats to lift the Cardinals to a 5-2 walk-off victory in the 10th inning Tuesday night against Miami. Arenado’s fourth career walk-off homer was the Cardinals’ first since Tommy Edman’s in June of 2022. And it gave the Cardinals their fourth consecutive win, tying their season high.
While the last-place team drifts toward the trade deadline with eyes on moving players, the players have won seven of their last nine games, eking every so slowing out of the NL Central pit.
In the 10th inning, the Marlins opted to intentionally walk Paul Goldschmidt to get A.J. Puk the better matchups against left-handed batters. Miami decided not to do the same when Arenado came to the plate. Puk got ahead 0-1, and the Arenado pounced.
His 21st homer of the season gave the Cardinals their first lead of the night.
“I’ve got to think about now,” Arenado said late Monday when asked about the teams plans to focus on building for 2024 through trades. “And what I need to get done and try to help this team win.”
Message spoken.
Message delivered — into the seats.
A few weeks after his error gave the Marlins a walk-off win in Miami, closer Jordan Hicks made the slick defensive play that kept the game going in St. Louis.
The first two batters of the ninth inning singled against Hicks to bring up one of the best contact hitters in the world. Luis Arraez, who brought a .378 batting average into Tuesday’s game, had only to put the ball in the air or a cue shot down the line to retake the lead for the Marlins. Hicks struck the All-Star out on three pitches, giving Arraez his first two strikeout game of the season and Hicks footing in the inning.
Jorge Soler, the Marlins’ next hitter, could not stop his swing before a check-swing grounder back to the mound. Against the same team he rushed his throw and fired it wildly into right field, Hicks threw the ball calmly to home for the tag and rally-quashing out.
Another strikeout and the tie game reached the bottom of the ninth.
Off the bench, Carlson keeps scoring runs
A day after he scored half of the Cardinals’ runs in a win and played superb center field, Dylan Carlson emerged from the dugout for the first time Tuesday night in the seventh inning.
Miami had just turned a stolen base, a wild pitch from Chris Stratton, and a two-out, broken-bat single into a 2-1 lead. To hold it, lefty Steven Okert took the mound to being the seventh inning, and the Cardinals countered with switch-hitter Carlson. Carlson had hits from both sides of the plate in Monday’s win, scored three runs and a drove in another from the leadoff spot, and had also recently learned his playing time was going to shrink with the return this week of Tyler O’Neill.
But not yet.
“Any opportunity is an opportunity for me to show what I can do,” Carlson said late Monday. He added that his playing time had been “scattered” and his wish was to find ways to help the team win, but he felt limited at times by playing time.
“It hurts, honestly,” he said.
His current play only helps.
Carlson drew a leadoff walk from Okert, and that put the Cardinals’ game-tying rally in motion. Against the lefty, left-handed hitter Nolan Gorman drilled a double to the outfield wall, and Carlson scored from first for a 2-2 game. It was the fourth time in five plate appearances that Carlson reached base – and then took an extra base to create a run.
In center for the eighth, he then stole an extra base with a sliding catch.
Donovan delivers at DH
While Brendan Donovan is still several days away from returning to the field, the Cardinals remain committed to finding ways to keep his bat in the lineup, often atop it.
Donovan, limited by a sore arm, has been unable to play second base or the outfield this entire month, and his one appearance in the field came at first base late in a blow under orders not to throw. But his production at the plate – and upside in his second big-league season – has the Cardinals reshuffling their plans at designated hitter and putting him there consistently. He entered Tuesday’s game batting .378 (14-for-37) since his arm injury put him on DH, and in that 10-game span he slugged .622 with more RBIs (nine) than strikeouts (eight).
He drew a walk to lead off the first inning. In the sixth, with the Cardinals trailing 1-0, he erased that deficit on his own.
Donovan hit his 11th home run of the season – his third during this stint at DH – to tie the game with a leadoff solo shot. His homer came on the Cardinals’ second hit of the game against Marlins’ starter Edward Cabrera.
With teams watching, Monty remains steady
Jordan Montgomery is pitching every inning to get closer to contending.
It just may not happen with the Cardinals.
As teams start to orbit the Cardinals and their pitchers available at the trade deadline, a few teams are drawn by the allure of Jack Flaherty finding his groove just in time for a postseason rush. And then there’s Montgomery with the consistency that counts at any time of the season. The lefty authored his sixth quality start in his past seven with six solid innings Tuesday against the Marlins. He slipped through six hits with five strikeouts, and 11 of his first 15 outs did not reach the outfield.
The one run Montgomery allowed came on a sacrifice fly and Donovan’s homer leveled the game in time for Montgomery to leave with a no decision.
Make a catch, miss a carom
Montgomery weaved around baserunners in early in his outing with help from his defense, especially a diving catch in between shadows in right-center field by Lars Nootbaar.
That same defense missed on a ricochet that led to a run.
In the second inning, Miami put its first two batters on base with a walk and a single. The Marlins then did Montgomery a solid when Jean Segura attempted a bunt and popped up to catcher Willson Contreras. Dane Myers then laced a low line drive to right-center field headed straight for the sliver of sun glare between two early-evening shadows. Nootbaar met it there – with his glove so low to the turf that a pepper grinder could not roll under it. That catch from the center fielder held both runners at second and gave Montgomery is exit.
A groundout completed the scoreless inning with two runners on base, neither of whom advanced after reaching first and second with no outs.
The glove taketh, the glove giveth.
An inning after a snappy backhanded play by Nolan Gorman ended the fourth, Nootbaar was again chasing a ball into the right-center gap. This time it was deep. Speedy Jon Berti tagged a ball off the fencing the Cardinals’ relievers watch the game through. Nootbaar came close to greeting the ball at that spot, but he was too close to gather the carom, and it scooted under his glove. That miss allowed Berti, who led the National League in steals in 2022, to dash from second to third. And that 90 feet meant he was in position to score on Arraez’s fly ball.
The ball getting under the glove became the difference between Berti watching the inning end from third base or watching it end from the dugout with a 1-0 lead.
Marlins’ Cabrera back with alacrity
When last Miami started Cabrera he allowed five runs on four hits and did not finish a start in Seattle past the fourth inning. The right-hander had been othered by blisters and a shoulder ailment, and while part of the Marlins’ pitching depth, he was suddenly absent – on the injured list for more than a month.
In his first start in the majors since June 13, Cabrera had one of his best of the season.
Cabrera pitched around two walks in the first inning by finishing the inning with a three-pitch strikeout from Nolan Arenado. The Cardinals’ All-Star watched a 98-mph fastball zip past him for strike three, nodded, and returned to get his glove to play defense. Cabrera needed nine pitches to blitz through a perfect third inning, and that gave him nine outs on his first 35 pitches back from the injured list. While the Cardinals eyeballed his pitches, he got ahead and then had control of counts and his way with hitters. He closed out the fifth inning by plunging a sharp, diving 94-mph fastball under the swing of Paul DeJong.
That gave him six strikeouts in his first 15 outs.
He took a no-hitter into the fifth inning when Alec Burleson reached first on a groundball that drew a high throw from third baseman Segura. Burleson’s hit was scored a single, and he advanced on the throwing error, right into scoring position with no outs.
Cabrera kept him there.
The Cardinals did not get a ball out of the infield that inning.
Four pitches into the sixth, Donovan lifted one out of the field.
