Friday’s Game Report: Cardinals 6, Cubs 5
By Rob Rains
The Cardinals didn’t plan for Friday night’s game to be a bullpen game, but it could not have worked out any better if they had.
After Andre Pallante was pulled from the game after working only three innings, six relievers combined to allow only one run over the final six innings and the Cardinals held on to defeat the Cubs in the opener of their three-game series at Busch Stadium.
That run came in the ninth off closer Riley O’Brien but the Cardinals luckily had scored an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth that gave them a two-run lead.
Nelson Velazquez, called up from Memphis as one of the Cardinals’ roster moves before the game, hit a three-run homer in his first at-bat to tie the game after Ian Happ hit a three-run shot of his own in the top of the first.
Thomas Saggese tied the game at 4 with a homer in the fourth before Ivan Herrera’s homer in the fifth put the Cardinals in front.
The win broke the Cardinals’ four-game losing streak.
Here is how Friday night’s game broke down:
At the plate: The homer from Velazquez, serving as the DH and cleanup hitter, came after Herrera was hit by a pitch and Jordan Walker walked, earning him a curtain call from the big crowd at Busch Stadium. It came on the first pitch and gave the Cardinals more runs on one swing than they had scored in the previous three games in Milwaukee, two, over 27 innings … Saggese, playing third base, hit his first homer of the season with two outs in the fourth to tie the game before Herrera’s seventh homer in the next inning put the Cardinals in front … In the eighth, Velazquez got an infield single, went to second on a two-out single by Masyn Winn and scored what turned out to be the winning run on a single by Jose Fermin.
On the mound: Pallante needed 75 pitches to record nine outs, the shortest outing of the season by a Cardinals’ starter. After giving up the homer to Happ in the first inning, he allowed another run in the second on a two-out single by Michael Busch and allowed eight hits in his three innings … Justin Bruihl, Gordon Graceffo, George Soriano, JoJo Romero and Ryne Stanek each worked a scoreless inning, allowing a combined two hits, before turning the game over to O’Brien in the ninth. Pete Crow-Armstrong greeted him with a double and he went to third on a groundout and scored on another grounder to cut the margin to one before O’Brien retired Alex Bregman to end the game, leaving Happ in the on-deck circle and earning his 14th save.
Key stat: Velazaquez became the first Cardinal to homer in his first plate appearance with the team since Lane Thomas in 2019. He is the first to homer on the first pitch since Adam Wainwright did it in 2006.
Worth noting: The Cardinals also promoted catcher Jimmy Crooks from Memphis before the game, optioning Cesar Prieto and Yohel Pozo to the Triple A club. The plan going forward is for Crooks to pick up some of the catching assignments that had been going to Pedro Pages, with Herrera continuing to catch two out of every five games and serving as the DH in the other games … The homer from Happ was his 28th against the Cardinals, the most by an active player, and his 13th at Busch Stadium 3. That is three less than Joey Votto, whose 16 homers are the most by a visiting player at Busch 3 … Pallante has allowed 12 runs in the first inning this season, tied for the most in the major leagues.
Up next: Kyle Leahy will get the start on Saturda night in the second game of the series. It will be televised by Fox, with first pitch scheduled for 6:15 p.m.
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