One of the things about being able to add to a lead, as the Cardinals did successfully on the recent road trip, is the importance of keeping it first.
The Cardinals misplaced an early lead in each half of their doubleheader Wednesday against Kansas City and spent most of the day at Busch Stadium playing catchup, never to do so because of the Royals ability to add on. Kansas City hit three home runs and pulled away for an 8-5 victory Wednesday night to complete a doubleheader sweep. The Royals won, 6-4, in the afternoon game. In a Show-Me State Showdown between two teams united by an interstate, a beloved Hall of Fame manager in the late Whitey Herzog, and winning records, the Royals did methodically what the Cardinals have done recently.
They took a lead and didn’t let it sit. They scored in six different innings, but never more than two runs in an inning.
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“(They) straight up beat us,†manager Oliver Marmol said after Game 1.
The same applied after Game 2.
A few hours after misplacing a 3-0 lead in the middle of the afternoon, the Cardinals spent an even shorter time with a slimmer lead in the second game of the doubleheader. Kansas City erased the Cardinals’ early 1-0 lead — seized with a Lars Nootbaar homer — and did so with bursts of extra bases against rookie Gordon Graceffo. Salvador Perez had the go-ahead RBI with a sacrifice fly and the stay-ahead RBI with a solo home run. He finished the doubleheader with four RBIs and two homers — each one of them helping the Royals to add on to their lead and stay a stride ahead of any Cardinals comeback.
For the first time since 2014, the year KC won the first of its back-to-back American League pennants, the Royals scored at least six runs in back-to-back games against the Cardinals.
Royals closer James McArthur closed both halves of the doubleheader for saves Nos. 16 and 17 on the year. It’s the first time in nearly 60 years that a pitcher has had two saves against the Cardinals on the same day.
He pitched around a ninth-inning single and a pinch-hit appearance by Matt Carpenter to retire the Cardinals in the nightcap and secure a win for former Cardinals standout Michael Wacha in his first game at Busch as a visitor.
With the sweep, the Royals are now 23-23 in their cross-state visits to Busch III.
Wacha’s return
In his first start at Busch Stadium since leaving the Cardinals after the 2019 season, Wacha got the most from a tailwind of run support. The right-hander pitched five innings and allowed four runs (three earned) on seven hits. He struck out three and left the game to the KC bullpen with a two-run lead.
Wacha (6-6) is pitching for his fifth team in the five years since leaving the Cardinals, where he was a rookie sensation and NLCS MVP the year after being drafted.
He’d faced the Cardinals before — successfully, too — but had yet to return to Busch Stadium as an opponent, yet to wear a road jersey on the mound he once called home. Wacha tiptoed around hits in most of his innings, limiting the Cardinals from extended rallies. He caught two Cardinals looking at strike three in the second inning to defuse that inning. Relying heavily on the trapdoor changeup that guided him and the Cardinals toward their most recent NL pennant in 2013, Wacha got seven swings and misses on the pitch he threw 31 times.
Nootbaar gets back in the swing
In his third game back from the injured list, Nootbaar vaulted into the middle of the order against right-handed Wacha and quickly delivered his first extra-base hits since an oblique strain.
Almost two months after his fifth home run of the season, Nootbaar tagged a cut fastball from Wacha for his sixth homer of the season. Kansas City left fielder MJ Melendez gave chase until leaping and crashing into the Cardinals’ retired numbers as Nootbaar’s line drive carried the 362 feet needed to slip over the wall. Nootbaar’s solo, opposite-field homer gave the Cardinals a brief 1-0 lead, and they trailed by three runs when the lineup came back around to him for a rematch with Wacha in the fourth.
Nootbaar hit Wacha’s sinker harder than the cutter.
He also hit it farther.
A one-out double left Nootbaar’s bat at 105 mph and traveled 392 feet to the right-field wall. Nootbaar scored on Nolan Gorman’s rule-book double when it hopped over the fence. Gorman’s 46th RBI of the season cut KC’s lead to two.
Perez doubles up during doubleheader
A few days after collecting his 1,500th career hit in a rout at Coors Field, Kansas City’s franchise catcher Perez added two home runs, one in each half of Wednesday’s doubleheader.
Perez provided the decisive run with a solo homer in the sixth inning of the afternoon game. After snapping a tie game in the fourth with a sacrifice fly in the night game, he moon-launched a solo homer to lead off the sixth inning. Perez’s 16th homer of the season cleared the visitors’ bullpen at Busch and traveled an estimated 438 feet.
The nine-time All-Star and five-time Gold Glove-winner is four homers shy of his fourth consecutive 20-homer season. In his early 20s when he backstopped the Royals to back-to-back American League pennants, Perez is starting to accumulate rare career totals for catchers with that 1,500th hit and potential to reach 1,000 RBIs and, with another surge, 300 homers.
Graceffo’s start turns into cameo
The Cardinals promoted pitching prospect Graceffo to be their 27th man and starter for the night half of Wednesday’s doubleheader. The timing worked out. It was his normal day to pitch had he stayed in Class AAA, and the Cardinals were going to call on an extra starter at some point this week to navigate two doubleheaders.
The choice hinged on when they wanted to start Sonny Gray.
The Cardinals preferred to pit Gray against the NL Central rival Cubs and have four members of the rotation set for the four weekend games rather than Gray vs. KC and not again before the All-Star break. Graceffo got the unclaimed start.
Well, a morsel of it.
After taking starter Andre Pallante into the seventh inning of the first game, the Cardinals had a nearly full complement of relievers for the second game and off day to give them a break Thursday. Cue the aggressive use. When Graceffo got into the heart of the Royals’ order for a second time and allowed back-to-back hits, manager Oliver Marmol went quickly the bullpen. Graceffo held the Royals to a solo homer in his first time through the lineup. Using his aggressive jab-step back before coming forward with the pitch, Graceffo struck out Perez in the second inning on a slider and erased the first he allowed with a double play ball to end the second inning.
Melendez drilled the first pitch of the third inning for a solo homer that tied the game, 1-1. Graceffo retired the next three batters he faced without allowing a ball out of the infield.
The fourth did not go as well for the young right-hander.
All-Star shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. opened the inning with a single, and first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino followed with a doubled roped to right field. When Perez lofted a sacrifice fly to right field on Graceffo’s 38th pitch and gave Kansas City the lead, that was the end of prospect’s start. Graceffo allowed three runs on four hits. He did not walk a batter, and one of the three runs he allowed scored after he had yielded the mound.
The Cardinals trailed 2-1 when Graceffo left the mound to lefty Matthew Liberatore — who brought a different look against the KC lineup and a juxtaposition as he, the Cardinals’ current No. 52, pitched opposite their former No. 52, Wacha.