Paul Goldschmidt’s game-ending HR lifts Cardinals to victory over Nationals

Paul Goldschmidt hit a walk-off homer in the ninth inning on Sunday to lead the St. Louis Cardinals to a 4-3 victory over the visiting Washington Nationals.

Goldschmidt led off the inning by hitting a 2-2 sinker off Dylan Floro (3-3) over the wall in left. It was Goldschmidt’s 16th strike of the season.

Willson Contreras also hit a home run for the Cardinals, ending a three-game losing streak.

Cardinals starting pitcher Miles Mikolas allowed three runs on seven hits in six innings. He struck out three and walked one.

Reliever Ryan Helsley (4-3) pitched the ninth inning to earn the win.

Lane Thomas had two doubles and an RBI for the Nationals, who lost for the fourth time in six games.

Nationals starting pitcher DJ Herz held the Cardinals to two runs on three hits in five innings. He struck out eight and walked one.

St. Louis took a 1-0 lead in the final inning on Contreras’ 150th career home run, a 402-foot blast into the third deck in left field.

The Cardinals extended their lead to 2-0 in the second inning, with Lars Nootbaar running and coming around to score on Pedro Pages’ triple into the right-center field gap.

Washington answered in the third inning. Riley Adams got a leadoff walk, went to third on Jacob Young’s double and scored on C.J. Abrams’ groundout.

Thomas followed this up with an RBI double to tie the score at 2-2.

James Wood tripled in the sixth inning and scored on a sacrifice fly by Juan Yepez to give the Nationals a 3-2 lead.

The Nationals threatened to score another run in the seventh inning. Young hit a one-out single in the seventh inning and then stole second and third base.

But Thomas flew out and Woods grounded out, stranding him.

The Cardinals tied the score at 3-3 in the final inning, with Nootbaar running, moving to third on Pages’ single and scoring on Michael Siani’s single.

–Field Level Media