Cardinals misplace early lead, but Goldschmidt delivers win

The Cardinals first baseman delivered one of his most impactful swings of the season with a walk-off solo home run to propel the Cardinals past the Nationals 4-3 on Sunday afternoon at Busch Stadium. Goldschmidt’s blast — the 356th of his career — sealed a much-needed victory for the teetering Cardinals, who avoided a series sweep and picked up momentum with the trade deadline looming Tuesday.

“It was a good win,” Goldschmidt said. “We know this is going to come down to the wire to get into the playoffs for whatever teams get in the NL, so I think the mindset is: Let’s just try to win today. We were in the middle of the game — I wouldn’t say we lost the momentum, but we didn’t have much going on. So you could easily build some frustration. We kept saying: Let’s try to find a way to win.”

Goldschmidt, who also singled as part of a 2-for-4 showing, capped an eventful weekend with his eighth career walk-off home run, doing so in front of an announced crowd of 37,639. The 14-year veteran opened the series by picking up his 2,000th career hit in the 10th inning of the Cardinals’ 10-8 loss to the Nationals on Friday night but did not have much time to celebrate when the game ended in a home defeat just three pitches later.

That was not the case in the series finale, as a celebration greeted Goldschmidt when he smoked a belt-high sinker from Nationals right-hander Dylan Floro — one of two MLB pitchers with at least 50 innings pitched this season to have not allowed a home run entering play Sunday — beyond the left field bullpen to snap the club’s losing streak at three games. 

“It’s good to see him (come through) in a win,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said. “He’s always going to put the win over his own accolades, and you saw it. We took the loss that game (Friday), and he took it hard. So to be able to come through in a walk-off like today, it was awesome.”

Amid a down year offensively for Goldschmidt, in which a majority of his offensive statistics have plummeted, the walk-off blast provided a step in the right direction toward greater consistency and quality of contact.

Goldschmidt notched his fourth and fifth home runs of July in the series, tying the most he has had in any month so far this season (he also had five in May). In the process, he also built upon a stretch that has featured his best full-month batting average (.247) and slugging (.483) of any this season.

“This was a good series to hit a couple of homers and hit some balls hard,” Goldschmidt said. “There are a lot of games left. One of the things I haven’t done is be consistent. There are games here or there that I’ve played well and then two or three where I don’t. I think the goal is to just try to be consistent. So hopefully this is the start of that. Only time will tell if that actually happens.”

The solo shot completed a small-scale but much-needed comeback for the Cardinals, who gave up an early two-run lead but found themselves in a one-run hole entering the seventh inning. A crafty combination of two-out offense, which started with Lars Nootbaar working a seven-pitch walk and Pedro Pages following with a single, helped knot the game at 3-3 when Michael Siani laced a game-tying single that deflected off the glove of Nationals shortstop CJ Abrams and into left field.

“I trust (Siani) there,” said Marmol, who opted to stick with Siani (.164/.222/.239 slash line against left-handers) instead of going with someone on the bench. “I was going to give him the at-bat, and thankfully, he came through (and) got the ball in play. It was going to be a tough play regardless of whether Abrams gets to that or not, but yeah, I just trusted him there.” 

The Cardinals leapt to an early advantage against Nationals rookie left-hander DJ Herz, coming through with a run in each of the first two innings. Cardinals designated hitter Willson Contreras ignited the offense with a solo home run in the first inning to open the scoring, and Pages added to the tally with an RBI triple in the second inning. Pages’ triple extended his hitting streak to 13 games, which is the second-longest streak by a Cardinals rookie catcher in team history behind Erik Pappas’ record of 16 games in 1993. 

Handed an early advantage, Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas allowed the Nationals to claw back but kept the Cardinals in it by allowing just three runs on seven hits across six innings. 

A pair of former Cardinals — Lane Thomas and Juan Yepez — had RBIs on a game-tying double in the third inning and a go-ahead sacrifice fly in the sixth, respectively, to add to Abrams’ RBI groundout that opened the Nationals’ scoring in the third. 

“You look at how they scored a couple of those runs, it’s unfortunate (with) the ball hitting the bag,” Marmol said. “He pitched a lot of curveballs, a big pitch for him. … For him to be able to give us six (innings) and keep the game where it was, was big.”

Once it became a bullpen game, the Cardinals prevailed behind the trio of John King, Andrew Kittredge and Ryan Helsley, who combined to allow two hits in three innings.

Goldschmidt did the rest, capping a career-defining weekend with a blast that not only helped the Cardinals claw out of a late hole but also displayed the fight they will need the rest of the way in a crammed National League wild-card race.

“I was just trying to get on base,” Goldschmidt said. “… There’s been a lot of times this year — way more often than not — that I’ve not come through in the ninth or extra innings.

“I was thankful to get the job done today.”