The St. Louis Cardinals spent eight innings building a lead one run at a time, watched it disappear in the space of one swing, and then went out and executed the same play again to win it. Ivan Herrera‘s sacrifice fly to left in the ninth scored Jose Fermin and put St. Louis ahead for good in a 5-4 win at Chase Field.
It was the third run the Cardinals scored on an out. Masyn Winn drove in two with a first-inning single up the middle and added a sacrifice fly in the eighth, finishing 1-for-2 with three RBI and a walk. JJ Wetherholt, three days after signing an eight-year, $112.5 million extension, hit his 14th homer in the fifth.
Michael McGreevy handled the rest. He worked 6 1/3 innings, allowed six hits and one earned run with five strikeouts and one walk, and lowered his ERA to 2.92. George Soriano finished the seventh, then Luis Gastelum gave the lead back in the eighth when Corbin Carroll pulled a two-run homer, his 14th, into the right-field seats. Carroll’s homer and Tim Tawa’s solo shot in the third accounted for three of Arizona’s four runs.
Gastelum got the win anyway. Paul Sewald walked one and allowed two hits while recording a single out in the ninth, and Riley O’Brien worked around a hit and a walk in the bottom half for his 25th save.
St. Louis is 51-45, 8 1/2 games behind Milwaukee and outside the wild-card picture, which is a better position than the club held a week ago and still not one that changes the shape of its deadline. Chaim Bloom’s front office has spent the month expected to sell expiring contracts before Aug. 3. Winning nights like this one raise the price on the pieces they keep.
In fantasy terms, O’Brien’s 25 saves make him a high-volume closer on a team that is not going anywhere — worth monitoring closely, because a contender acquiring him would gut that value overnight. McGreevy, meanwhile, is a legitimate streaming option who has now made enough starts at a sub-3.00 ERA to be rostered in 12-team leagues rather than picked up matchup by matchup.
