By Joe Strauss, St. Louis Post-Dispatch –
ST. LOUIS — The first half of the season officially passed for the Cardinals on Tuesday night. Perhaps fittingly it offered a lesson in how not to approach a one-run game.
A team long on run differential but narrowly above .500 suffered a 3-2 loss to the pitching-poor Colorado Rockies before a Busch Stadium crowd of 41,701. An unearned tally in the visitors’ three-run third inning and two chances the Cardinals burned late accounted for much of the difference.
(PHOTO: St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, right, lunges forward to secure a ball bunted by the Colorado Rockies’ Jeff Francis to start a double play in fourth-inning action on Tuesday, July 3, 2012, at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri. Colorado won, 3-2.)
The Cardinals’ last gasp came in a grinding ninth inning in which third baseman David Freese reached on a nine-pitch at-bat to open the frame and advanced to scoring position on a one-out ground ball. There, Rockies closer Rafael Betancourt survived a return appearance by a rally squirrel by getting a ground ball from Rafael Furcal before striking out Jon Jay on three pitches.
The Cardinals entered 5-3 in one-run games since June 4 but exited 8-13 in such decisions this season. Their record dropped to 42-39 despite their league-best run differential of plus-63.
All losses aren’t created equal. The Cardinals received three shutout innings from lefthander Barret Browning and Fernando Salas. The Rockies managed hits in only two innings while the Cardinals spread their nine hits among six frames.
Rookie righthander Joe Kelly (1-1) offered a quality start but suffered his first career loss in his fifth major-league appearance. Kelly held the league’s most prolific lineup to five hits and two earned runs through six innings. A 31-pitch third inning, including an uncharacteristic poor decision by catcher Yadier Molina, became the night’s turning point.
The Rockies, who won their only road series April 20-22 in Milwaukee, won for the seventh time in 25 games behind Jeff Francis (2-1), a pitcher the Cardinals coveted but moved too slowly to get following his recent release.
The Cardinals took a quick 2-0 lead against Francis when left fielder Matt Holliday continued his scalding three-week run with a two-run, first-inning home run.
Two-out rallies in the third inning and seventh inning brought nothing. Francis escaped the third by shattering Allen Craig’s bat on a looping liner to third base. A relief tag team navigated the seventh after the Cardinals squandered an out on the bases.
“We lost tonight because as an offense we didn’t do enough,” Craig said. “Every one-run game is different. I can’t reflect right now on them all. But they’re always frustrating games to lose because you can always think you could have done more. A game like this is no exception. I had a chance with the bases loaded and it didn’t happen.”
Kelly’s biggest sin of the night might have been his one-out walk of Rockies shortstop Jonathan Herrera. The situation festered when Francis laid down a bunt in a two-run game.
Rather than take the out at first base and concede scoring position to Herrera, Molina attempted to stop the lead runner, but his throw sailed wide to the right-field side, making runner and batter safe and freezing the inning at one out.
“I want Yadi to be aggressive. I want him making that play. It was the right play to make,” manager Mike Matheny said. “You can’t have him playing timid. He had that play right in front of him. He makes that play almost all the time. The ball just tailed on him. There’s a walk ahead of that, too.”
Molina read the play himself.
“I know I can make the play,” he said. “The throw tailed. I made an error. I’m human.”
Center fielder Ty Colvin then appeared to add to the Cardinals’ list of mistakes. Given a high 0-2 change-up he could reach, Colvin turned Kelly around for a three-run home run.
“A bad pitch; the count was right,” Matheny said.
The inning dragged on for five more hitters, raising Kelly’s pitch count to 52 before the fourth inning. To his credit, Kelly maintained composure for the rest of the night. Molina helped him through the fourth inning by starting a double play on another Francis bunt before his pitcher retired All-Star left fielder Carlos Gonzalez on a two-out infield pop up.
Kelly finished his third consecutive quality start by retiring the last seven hitters he faced.
Unable to push a runner past second base after the third inning, the Cardinals missed a chance in the seventh.
Daniel Descalso, the second consecutive lefthanded pinch hitter to face Rockies lefthanded reliever Rex Brothers, singled with one out.
Descalso quickly became the inning’s second out when Furcal swung through a pitch on a hit-and-run.
Furcal eventually wrangled an infield hit followed by Jay’s walk. Righthander Matt Belisle entered to retire Holliday on a ground ball to third base.