CINCINNATI — Mincing few words before Saturday night’s game at Great American Ball Park, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said that the club needed Tyler O’Neill and Steven Matz to be good the rest of the way for the Cardinals to arrive at their destination of a championship.
O’Neill, batting No. 2 for the second night in succession, hit a two-run homer and drove in another run with a single, giving him five runs batted in for the two nights. He had only 28 RBIs in an injury-plagued season before the team got here.
Matz, who hadn’t started for the Cardinals since May 22 because of a left shoulder impingement, struck out seven, including five in a row from the fourth into the sixth innings. He gained his first win since May 2 in the Cardinals’ 6-3 triumph over the Reds but wasn’t able to finish the sixth when he suffered a left knee strain after fumbling Joey Votto’s tapper down the first-base line and then lunging to try to pick it up.
Matz, who may have been better off letting first baseman Paul Goldschmidt make the play, now will be out several more weeks. Insult added to injury, Matz (4-3), who allowed just three hits and walked only one in 5 1/3 innings, was charged with an error.
But the Cardinals’ bullpen controlled the final 3 2/3 innings — All-Star Ryan Helsley recorded his ninth save — and the Cardinals won the second game of a trip for the seventh consecutive time this year. Oddly, they have lost the first game on all seven trips.
