Cardinals Rookie Reliever Touched Up a Second Straight Game in Loss to Cubs

· Yahoo Sports

Roundtable Sports' John Denton breaks down the Cardinals' 4-2 loss to the Cubs in 10 innings at Busch Stadium on Thursday.

A disappointment most of his first season with the Cubs, Alex Bregman came alive of late and almost single-handedly beat the rival Cardinals over a four-game series at Busch Stadium.

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Bregman doubled and scored Chicago’s first run of the day and then delivered a run-scoring double in the top of the 10th inning that lifted the Cubs to a 4-2 victory over the Cards and a 3-1 series win.

Bregman, who signed a five-year, $175 million free-agent contract with the Cubs last January, limped into Busch Stadium on Monday having gone hitless in his previous 12 at bats. However, he smashed the Cardinals for 10 hits in 18 at bats with a homer, five doubles and three RBI in the four-game series.

Cardinals' standout rookie JJ Wetherholt hit a dramatic, game-tying homer in the seventh inning for his 16th long ball of the season.

Cardinals' rookie reliever Luis Gastelum, who surrendered a towering two-run homer to Pete Crow-Armstrong in Wednesday's win, was hit hard again in Thursday's 10th inning. Gastelum allowed doubles to Alex Bregman and Ian Happ and two runs in the 10th inning to fall in the series finale.       

The Cardinals took two of three in the late May/early June series in St. Louis and again in the early July series victory at Wrigley Field. However, the Cubs flexed their offensive muscles in this season by dominating the first two games and outlasting the Redbirds on Thursday.

The Cardinals, losers in 10 of 14 games since the break for the MLB All-Star Game, now hit the road for three games in Toronto and in New York against the Yankees.

Extra innings needed a second night in a row

The Cards grabbed a 1-0 lead in the second inning Lars Nootbaar and Masyn Winn drew one-out walks from Cubs’ right-hander Javier Assad. Nootbaar then came around to score when Bryan Torres took advantage of a rare start by singling to left field.

The Cubs knotted the score in the fourth inning thanks to a mental mistake by Nootbaar, who got the start in right field with Jordan Walker at designated hitter. After a one-out double by Alex Bregman, Nootbaar tracked down a fly ball off the bat of Ian Happ near the wall, but he forgot how many outs there were in the inning. Nootbaar then scrambled to get the ball back in and his high throw eluded Winn, allowing Bregman to score to tie the game.

The score would stay that way until the seventh inning when Andre Pallante issued a one-out walk to No. 9 hitter Dansby Swanson that led to him being lifted. Pallante, who has authored one of MLB’s best bounce-back seasons in 2026, got 13 ground ball outs and scattered seven hits over 6 1/3 innings of work.

Swanson stole second, moved up to third base on a wild pitch by reliever George Soriano and scored when Michael Busch punched an outside changeup into left field for an RBI single.

The Cardinals didn’t have to wait long to re-tie the score as Wetherholt smashed a 406-foot homer when lefty Caleb Thielbar hung a sweeper. Incredibly, it was his first homer and RBI at Busch Stadium since May 19 – a stretch of 136 plate appearances.    

 

 

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