Saturday gave the Cardinals plenty of reasons to walk away soaked and sour.
They fell behind early, rallied to take a lead and then fell in extra innings to the club with the worst record in baseball after a 3-hour and 3-minute rain delay put the game on pause so that they could resume for less than one minute.
Heavy rain and lightning halted play with two outs, the bases loaded and Cardinals second baseman Nolan Gorman at the plate facing reliever John Brebbia, a former Cardinals pitcher, with an 0-1 count. The game stopped at that point and the outcome hung in the balance as rain pummeled the field for the next three hours.
When play resumed, the White Sox turned to left-handed reliever Tanner Banks and the Cardinals countered by pinch-hitting for Gorman with right-handed hitting backup catcher Ivan Herrera.
Already down in the count 0-1, Herrera swung and missed on the first pitch he saw from Banks, then took a borderline pitch for a ball. Herrera fouled off the next pitch, a changeup, but got called out on strike three by home plate umpire CB Bucknor. The called third strike appeared farther off the plate than the borderline pitch called for a ball two pitches earlier.
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Herrera's strikeout wrapped up the Cardinals’ 6-5 loss to the White Sox in 10 innings in front of what remained of an announced crowd of 38,559 at Busch Stadium.
The loss sets up a rubber match between the teams at 1:15 p.m. Sunday, and left-hander Matthew Liberatore will make his first start of the season for the Cardinals (15-18).
“You know they only have one guy left,†Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said of the way the game unfolded at the delay. “They’re going to go to the lefty. He’s punching out lefties 34 percent of the time. You have a right-handed bat that you feel really good with, Herrera.
“You wait three hours and you want it to be determined between the pitcher and the hitter. That wasn’t the case.â€
While Herrera’s at-bat provided the final out of the game, the Cardinals loaded the bases with no outs in the 10th when they needed one run to tie and two to win the game. They struck out three times with the game on the line, including the final out.
Former Cardinal and recent White Sox addition Tommy Pham provided the margin of victory with a one-out RBI single in the top of the 10th inning that drove in the automatic runner/ghost runner. His single came against Cardinals rookie reliever Ryan Fernandez.
Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt started the bottom of the 10th as the automatic runner on second base, Nolan Arenado singled and Alec Burleson reached on a fielder’s choice when White Sox third baseman Bryan Ramos threw home with Goldschmidt drawing a throw to the plate.
However, Ramos’ throw went in the dirt, White Sox catcher Korey Lee couldn’t field it cleanly and that allowed Goldschmidt to retreat to third base safely.
That loaded the bases with no outs, but Lars Nootbaar struck out and extended his recent slump to 0 for 10 and Masyn Winn struck out and stretched his slump to 0 for 14. That set up the Gorman/Herrera final at-bat.
“The at-bats, obviously, needed to be better,†Marmol said. “They were frustrated with it. They obviously wanted to come through there, but we didn’t. We had an opportunity to wrap that up and we missed it.â€
The White Sox (7-26) recorded just their second road win of the season. They’re 2-14 away from Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago.
Arenado continued what has become a breakout series with a 3-for-3 performance that included a three-run home run with two walks. Arenado drove in all three of the team’s runs in Friday night’s win. He’s now batting .296 for the season. The home run was his second this season.
“(The frustration level) is high, and it should be high,†Arenado said. “Guys shouldn’t be OK with what’s going on right now. We’ve got a lot of games left, but that’s just an ongoing excuse. We can’t continue to use that. We know there’s a better feeling there, and we’ve just got to continue to push.â€
The Cardinals scored all five of their runs in the fifth inning, and they collected three of their five hits in that same inning.
They were 3 for 13 with runners in scoring position, and they left 10 men on base.
Arenado described the offense coming up empty in the bottom of the 10th as “brutal.â€
“It stings,†Arenado said. “But if we continue to put ourselves in this position with the tying run on third or no outs — if we continue to do this — good things are going to happen because sooner or later it’s going to flip because we’re going to feel really good and we’re going to be driving in those runs.â€
The Cardinals faced an early deficit after starting pitcher Lance Lynn gave up two first-inning runs to his former club.
Lynn pitched for the White Sox from 2021-2023, and he tied a franchise single-game record with 16 strikeouts against the Seattle Mariners in June of last year. In 70 starts with the White Sox, Lynn went 25-22 with a 4.23 ERA, a 1.29 WHIP, 444 strikeouts and 109 walks in 398 1/3 innings.
Lynn faced the White Sox for the first time since they traded him and reliever Joe Kelly to the Los Angeles Dodgers on July 28, 2023.
The first three batters of the game reached base against Lynn via a Nicky Lopez leadoff single, a Pham walk and a Gavin Sheets RBI double. Eloy Jimenez’s sacrifice fly drove in the other run.
A Gorman fielding error led to an unearned run in the fourth inning, and the Cardinals trailed 3-0 going into the fifth inning against White Sox starter Erick Fedde.
However, the Cardinals got more than a little bit of traction against Fedde in the fifth. Gorman drew a leadoff walk, followed by a Michael Siani single — the Cardinals’ first hit since the first inning — and that set up a two-run double rifled down the line and just inside of first base by Brendan Donovan.
Donovan’s double made it a one-run game, and Willson Contreras walked for the second time in the game to put the go-ahead run on base. Following a Goldschmidt strikeout, Arenado hammered a 2-2 sinker left up and over the outer half of the plate.
Arenado’s blast traveled an estimated 412 feet to center field for a three-run home run. That put the Cardinals in front 5-3.
Lynn couldn’t hold onto the lead. He walked the first two batters of the sixth inning, and reliever Andrew Kittredge came within one out of stranding both men on base. Instead, Lee hit a two-out single up the middle that tied the game in the sixth and set the stage for extra innings after neither team scored in the seventh, eighth or ninth innings.
“It wasn’t a good day for me, there’s no other way to say it,†Lynn said. “The team got me five runs, then I turn around and walk the two guys in the top of the sixth. All in all, I’ve got to be better from the get-go.â€