Cardinals fall 5-4, drop finale to Pirates
St. Louis lost the rubber game to Pittsburgh and its playoff math got harder, but the roster moved on Sunday with Victor Scott II back up and Masyn Winn nearing a return.
Pirates take 2 of 3 in Busch finale
Pittsburgh beat St. Louis 5-4 on August 30, closing out a series the Cardinals had opened with a 4-1 win on August 28 behind Matthew Liberatore, who went 5.2 innings with 9 strikeouts and just 3 earned runs allowed. Gordon Graceffo followed with 2 scoreless innings of relief, allowing 1 hit and striking out 3, and Thomas Saggese went 3-for-4 at the plate. None of it was enough to salvage the finale, and the Pirates took the series 2-1 after also winning August 29, 6-2.
Pirates4-1Pirates2-6Pirates4-5The split leaves the Cardinals 2-3 in their last 5 games and 68-70 on the year, 5.0 games back of the final NL Wild Card spot with an elimination number of 8. San Diego holds that last spot at 73-65, with Arizona a half-game behind them — ground St. Louis did not gain this week.
Recent News
The Cardinals recalled outfielder Victor Scott II from Triple-A Memphis on Monday and optioned catcher Jimmy Crooks back down, the club announced. It's a swap that adds outfield speed for the stretch run while St. Louis waits on two infielders it's been without.
Shortstop Masyn Winn (thumb) could be activated from the 10-day injured list as soon as Tuesday, when he first becomes eligible, Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. Second baseman JJ Wetherholt, meanwhile, will have his injured right wrist examined by a specialist in Arizona early this week, per Goold — the first indication of where that injury stands since he went down.
Upcoming
The Cardinals are in Los Angeles tonight to open a series with the Dodgers, sending Michael McGreevy (5-9, 3.86 ERA) to the mound. McGreevy's last start was rough — 5 innings, 7 earned runs and 10 hits against Baltimore on August 26 — and he'll need a bounce-back against a Dodgers lineup on their own turf. Los Angeles counters with Eric Lauer (8-6, 4.78 ERA), who beat Colorado on August 18 with 5 innings of 4-run ball and 6 strikeouts.
The Dodgers are favored at home, and the market reads the total as middling — not a shootout, but not a pitchers' duel either. With McGreevy fresh off his worst start of the stretch and Lauer working with modest results of his own, St. Louis will need its lineup to do more than it did in the series against Pittsburgh if it wants to beat the number.