Cubs lose late lead as Cardinals cruise to Saturday win originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
Brendan Donovan had a two-run single, Lars Nootbaar added an RBI triple and the St. Louis Cardinals rallied in the eighth inning to beat the Chicago Cubs 7-6 on Saturday night.
In front of their first sellout crowd since Opening Day, the Cardinals scored four times with two outs in the eighth and won for the ninth time in 11 games in a surge that followed a seven-game losing streak.
Matt Carpenter had a pinch-hit single to tie the game, with Alec Burleson sliding in head-first and touching the plate with his left hand just before being tagged by the catcher. Miguel Amaya.
“It was really close,” Burleson said. “I was just trying to get to the plate as fast as I could with my hand.”
Donovan followed with a single to left field to put St. Louis up 6-4 and chase Mark Leiter Jr. (1-2). Nootbaar added a run with his triple off Goalkeeper Hodge.
“He’s got some pretty good stuff,” Donovan said of Leiter, who came in with a 0.90 ERA while allowing lefties to hit just .149. “He was just trying to hit something hard.”
Ryan Helsley allowed RBI singles for Mike Tauchman and Cody Bellinger in the ninth, but retired Christopher Morel on a groundout for his 16th save in 17 opportunities.
“Just facing one of the best bullpens in the game in that situation, to keep fighting, I really thought we were going to pull that off,” the Cubs starter said. Jameson Taillon saying. “That was pretty amazing.”
The Cubs took the lead in the seventh with a comeback that began after michael busch reached when the ball flew out of Paul Goldschmidt’s glove as he attempted to catch a throw from second baseman Nolan Gorman. After Swanson walked, Patrick Wisdom He hit a tie-breaking double just inside third base to score Busch.
JoJo Romero (2-0) got the last out of the seventh and pitched a scoreless eighth.
“That was a lot of fun,” Burleson said. “That game, just the back and forth, you can’t really describe it.”
The Cubs have lost eight of 11, being shut out three times in that stretch. They averaged 2.3 runs in their previous 10 games.
Nico Hoerner he hit a two-run double in the fourth that barely cleared a leaping Donovan and hit the bullpen wall in left field. He then scored on Busch’s single to center to give the Cubs their first lead.
Masyn Winn’s two-out RBI double into the left field corner in the sixth made it 3-3 and ended Taillon’s outing. Taillon allowed three runs and nine hits in 5 2/3 innings.
The Cubs decided to do without the rookie sensation Shota Imanaga (5-0, 0.84 ERA), the scheduled starter in the rain on Friday night.
