By Zachary McMahon-
The Washington Nationals played the St. Louis Cardinals in the series finale on Sunday afternoon at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. The Nats were trying to sweep the Cardinals after taking the first two games of the series, both scoring 10+ runs, as this is the second time this season that they had consecutive games scoring 10+ runs, as they scored 11 & 12 runs respectively against the Miami Marlins on April 27 & 28 as a part of a four-game road series sweep. Meanwhile for the Cardinals, this was the first time they had allowed 10+ runs in consecutive games since last season on July 4 & 5, which was also against the Marlins.
Harold Ramirez was at the designated hitter spot after the Nats traded Jesse Winker to the New York Mets for righthander Tyler Stuart in the middle of Saturday’s game. The Nats recalled outfielder Alex Call from Triple-A Rochester, but he did not play in this game. The Cards designated righthander Giovanny Gallegos for assignment, and recalled righthander Kyle Leahy from Triple-A Memphis.
DJ Herz started for the Nats, going five innings with three hits, two earned runs, and one walk with eight strikeouts. Miles Mikolas was on the mound for the Cardinals, where he tossed six innings, allowed seven hits, three earned runs, one walk and three strikeouts.
Willson Contreras hit his 150th home run for the Cardinals to left field for the first run of the game, and then Pedro Pages hit his second triple of his career and Lars Nootbaar came home as the Cardinals started off with a 2-0 lead, Pages also extended his hitting streak to 13 games, which moves into the second-longest hitting streak for a rookie this season, as Jackson Chourio has 12 games for the Milwaukee Brewers, and is three games away from tying the record for longest hitting streak by a rookie Cardinals catcher, Erik Pappas had a 16 game streak in his rookie season in 1993 with the Cardinals. Pages also tied the second longest active hitting streak with Carlos Correa, who has hit in his last 13 games prior to landing on the 10-day injured list on July 20, the longest is Ezekiel Tovar of the Colorado Rockies who has a 10-game hitting streak. It was Conteras’s fifth homer in his last eight games against the Nats, and ties his best month in terms of home runs and RBIs, as he has seven homers and 16 RBIs in the month of July, and he had the same numbers in August 2022 with the Chicago Cubs, he also tied Francisco Lindor for most homers against the Nationals this season.
Lane Thomas tied it up in the third on a double, as it was his second double of the game, and then Juan Yepez brought home James Wood on a sacrifice fly to take a 3-2 lead in the sixth. Thomas extended his on-base streak to 25 games, as he is one game away from tying his longest on-base streak of 26 games last season. Also, Yepez has had an RBI in four out of his last five games (eight in total).
Michael Siani tied it back up for the Cardinals in the seventh inning with a single to left that scored Nootbaar for the second time.
Then, Paul Goldschmidt hits a walk-off homer for the eighth time of his career off a 2-2 sinker from Dylan Floro, as the Cardinals won 4-3 over the Nationals, and avoided the sweep. This was the first Cardinals walk-off win since April 22 when Nolan Gorman homered against the Arizona Diamondbacks. John King, Andrew Kittridge, and Ryan Helsey tossed three scoreless innings in order to lead up to the moment for Goldschmidt. That was Goldschmidt’s 356th homer of his career, which ties for 91st in the MLB All-time list with Joey Votto. Floro had pitched 56 innings without allowing a home run since Sept. 13, 2023, which was third on the list of active pitchers since then.
Michael Siani hit two singles to extend his hitting streak to seven games.
The Cardinals have won the season series against Washington for the third season in a row, and their fifth out of the last six seasons. The Cardinals avoid a sweep by the bats of the Nationals, which would’ve been the first time since 2016.
The Nationals will travel to Arizona to face Joc Pederson and the Arizona Diamondbacks, as it will be Mitchell Parker against Jordan Montgomery on the mound on Monday at 9:40 pm. The Cardinals will stay at Busch Stadium to face the defending World Series champions Texas Rangers with Andre Pallante going up against Nathan Eovaldi at 6:45 pm local time on Monday.
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