Cardinals Fall to the Dodgers, Pirates Take on NL-Worst Marlins
Looking to snap the Los Angeles Dodgers win streak, the St. Louis Cardinals fell short on Monday, losing 2-3 to the NL West leaders.
With the Dodgers win, they have now won 15 straight on the road. This now ties them with four teams as the MLB’s third-longest win streak on the road: the Boston Red Sox (1939), the Chicago White Sox (1951), the New York Yankees (1953) and the Redlegs (the 1957 Cincinnati Reds).
As for setting a new record, the Dodgers will need to hit 22 road wins, surpassing the current record of 21 set by the Detroit Tigers.
Adam Wainwright
Cardinals pitcher righty Adam Wainwright (13-7) fell short for a third straight time to grab his 14th win and remains tied with his teammate Lance Lynn. Wainwright allowed three runs over seven innings.
Wainwright said of the game via MLB.com, “That’s another tough loss. They’re playing great ball, obviously. They’ve won 15 straight times on the road. I knew that going in and wanted to end that streak. They were opportunistic tonight and did some good things when they needed to.”
After getting 44 runs over the last four games, Carlos Beltran and Allen Craig each added an RBI apiece for the Cardinals but it wasn’t good enough as they have now lost their last nine of 12 games.
For the Dodgers, righty Zack Greinke (9-3) pitched 6 1/3 innings, giving up two runs for career win No. 100. He allowed two hits in the third, fourth and fifth innings but zero runs.
The Dodgers seem pretty unstoppable at this point and on Tuesday, the four-game series will continue. They’ll put lefty Clayton Kershaw (10-6), MLB’s ERA leader at 1.87, on the mound against the Cardinals righty Joe Kelly(2-3) . In July, Kershaw had the NL pitcher of the month honors with his 4-1 (1.34 ERA) record. Kelly, looking to be more than the team’s sporadic starter No. 5, has thrown 14 2/3 straight scoreless innings for his team.
The Cardinals sit two games behind the Pittsburgh Pirates (67-44) in the NL Central race. Trying to gain ground against the Dodgers is going to be a challenge and it’s not going to happen after Tuesday’s game. The Dodgers keep their win streak alive (-146, 6.5 o/u).
Other NL Central News
The rest of the NL Central got the day off on Monday and on Tuesday, the Pirates will kick off a new three-game series of the NL best vs. the worst of the NL against the lowly Miami Marlins (43-67).
In their July series, Miami was the victor (winning two of three games) and the Pirates expect to be challenged in this one. They’ll look to their pitching for a win (tops in the majors with a 3.07 ERA) against Miami’s improving 2.51 ERA since the All-Star break.
Jeff Locke
The Marlins will put righty Henderson Alvarez (2-1) on the mound against the Pirate’s lefty Jeff Locke (9-3). The two last went up against each other in the July series and Alvarez was the winner–his first with the team.
But on Tuesday, the win will go to Pittsburgh (-179, 7 o/u).
Looking ahead to the postseason, the Pirates sit at 6/1 to win the NL Pennant and 12/1 for the World Series.
In other Tuesday games, the Reds will open up a two-game series against the AL West-leading Oakland Athletics (64-47). They sit six games behind the Pirates and desperately want to catch up.
Playing against the A’s may help as they’ve lost their last four of five games. But they play well against NL teams–going 13-5–and when these teams last met in June, the A’s won the two-game series.
On Tuesday, righty Dan Straily (6-5) will take the mound for the A’s against the Reds righty Mat Latos (10-3).
Cincinnati gets the win (-145, 8 o/u).
