PITTSBURGH – As they plotted and discussed different scenarios that might greet the Cardinals in the late innings Monday night at PNC Park, manager Oliver Marmol and his coaches considered what happened last time they played here and what’s happened so often they’ve played anywhere at all this season.
Games decided by small margins can be shaped by small edges.
So to gain one they decided to go with a different look.
With the score tied – 1-1, of course – in the bottom of the eighth inning, Pirates switch-hitter Bryan Reynolds led off. When game-planning for that exact spot, the Cardinals weighed which lefty to choose. JoJo Romero had allowed a single and a walk-off hit against the same spots in the Pirates’ lineup when last the Cardinals visited. John King has a penchant for getting groundballs. They went with King. He got groundballs. The game shifted on a wild pitch that ushered Reynolds into scoring position. He trotted home on a groundball single for the win, 2-1.
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“We felt good about keeping the ball on the ground as much as possible,” Marmol explained late Monday night. “They’re going to have to single us to death. They did. That’s what it came down to, right? As much as King is on the ground, as much as Reynolds and (Oneil) Cruz are on the ground, both of those guys are going to have to try to lift the ball. And more power to them if they can. They singled us to death.”
The Cardinals have started the second half a lot like they spent the first half.
Three of their four games have been decided by four or fewer runs, two by just a single run. They reached their 100th game of the season and, in their 52 victories, still average a margin of victory less than 3.0. Put another: Every win, on average, is a save situation. The Cardinals have played seven games against the Pirates so far this season and a grand total of four runs separated them, 24-20. Two runs, 37 to 35, separate the Cardinals and Cubs in nine games.
“That’s why every decision, every pitch, every at-bat seems extremely magnified, because there is no room for error,” Marmol said. “The margins have been really thin all year. We’ve played a lot of those games. Like the one we played tonight. One ball in the dirt leads to a runner moving up, and it just changes the game a little bit.”
Said starter Andre Pallante: “In 1-1 game, you know someone has got to give.”
Pallante worked through some lengthy, early innings to gather momentum through six innings. He described himself as “froggy” in the first few innings because he had gone nearly a dozen days without pitching. The Pirated tagged him with a double-single combo in the third inning for a 1-0 lead on Oneil Cruz’s two-out, RBI single. When Nolan Gorman tied the game with his team-leading 19th home run, Pallante accelerated. He needed only eight pitches to complete the fifth inning and that righted his pitch count to press on into the sixth. Following Cruz’s RBI single, Pallante retired 10 of the final 11 batters he faced.
Pittsburgh starter Mitch Keller completed seven innings and allowed the one solo homer and five other hits, but no other runs.
When the Cardinals got to the bottom of the seventh in a 1-1 tie, the scenarios played out earlier by the coaches came into play. Chris Roycroft, the rookie right-hander getting increasingly more significant innings, pitched the seventh and sidestepped a couple of singles to keep the Pirates scoreless. That put the game where Marmol and his coaches expected it could land. Reynolds, the Pirates’ No. 2 hitter, was due up first in the eighth.
Cruz would be on deck.
On July 3 at PNC Park, that tandem ended the game against Romero. Reynolds laced a single to center field to score a run in the 10th inning. Cruz followed with a deep drive to right that scored the winning run in – wait for it – a one-run ballgame, 5-4.
In their discussions before the game, Marmol and his staff considered what a different look would present the Pirates. In the past month, Romero has appeared in eight games, pitched six innings, and struck out one batter. King invites contact and gets groundballs. Reynolds and Cruz tend to hit groundballs.
This season, as a right-handed batter against a lefty pitcher, the switch-hitting Reynolds has a 55.6% groundball rate, and his slugging percentage dips from .509 to .444. Cruz has a 56.4% groundball rate against left-handed pitchers this season, and he’s batting .161 with a .189 on-base percentage. The idea for the Cardinals was to meet those grounded numbers with a grounded pitcher and, strategically, maximize the chances of getting a groundball.
“Give them a different look there with King,” Marmol said.
He got the grounders.
Reynolds skipped a single to left field to lead off the eighth. With Cruz at the plate and about to strikeout, King misplaced a slider, planting it in the dirt. He wanted it higher. Instead it kissed the soil and slipped away from catcher Pedro Pages enough for Reynolds to advance to second, into scoring position.
“That’s the gig sometimes,” King said. “I’m a contact guy most of the time. I wish I got that slider a little more. Pages made a good play and it kicked out.”
And here is how slim the decisive moment can be in these games.
Reynolds being at second and not at first drew second baseman Nolan Gorman closer to second. King got a groundball from Nick Gonzalez, but it bounced right where Gorman would be playing the inning straight-up. The hopper leaked through to right field and Reynolds happened to be just the right runner to score from second. Another groundball single followed before King got a grounder spun into a double play. He faced five hitters. He got four groundballs. He missed on one wild pitch that turned one of those singles into an RBI.
One run set the final score.
What decided it was even slimmer.
Said King: “Every pitch matters.”