By Joe Strauss, St. Louis Post-Dispatch –
CINCINNATI — A game and a series eluded the Cardinals on Sunday night at Great American Ball Park. Frozen by run-scoring opportunities, they failed to prevent former teammate Scott Rolen from capping the Cincinnati Reds’ three-game sweep with a two-run, eighth-inning single.
Rolen’s bases-loaded, broken-bat single fell beyond second base and transformed a 2-2 tie into a 4-2 Reds win. The night’s biggest injustice belonged to starting pitcher Jake Westbrook (7-8), who took the loss after holding the Reds for seven innings.
The game-winning hit bruised the inning’s third pitcher, righthander Mitch Boggs. Boggs had allowed only two of 27 inherited baserunners to score before Sunday night.
By doubling that total, the Reds assumed sole possession of the National League Central lead while dropping the Cardinals 4½ games off their pace.
The Reds won due to opportunism. They used a wild pitch, a two-strike hit batter and an intentional walk to feed the situation before sore-shouldered Rolen, hitting .188 before the game, produced his second single of the night.
The Reds have won six straight games while the Cardinals head to Milwaukee still searching for their first win of the second half. They endured a lost series decided by five runs total largely because of an inability to dent the Reds’ powerful bullpen.
The Cardinals fell to four for 28 with runners in scoring position during the series. The number said everything about a series that offered three coin-flip games, including one that reached extra innings.
Catcher Yadier Molina contributed the sum of the Cardinals’ attack with a second-inning RBI double and a home run to lead off the sixth inning.
Westbrook lost the tie game by walking first baseman Joey Votto with one out in the eighth inning before advancing him on a breaking pitch that skipped past Molina. Free-swinging Brandon Phillips reached base when hit by a two-strike pitch that also ended Westbrook’s night. Marc Rzepczynski induced a deflected ground ball for the inning’s second out before Boggs entered to walk Ryan Ludwick on four pitches to load the bases.
Rolen then hit a soft liner over second baseman Skip Schumaker’s leaping attempt as two runs scored.
Closer Aroldis Chapman allowed the Cardinals no answer. He struck out pinch hitter Tyler Greene, Schumaker and shortstop Rafael Furcal in order to feed a zealous crowd of 39,280.
The Cardinals scored twice because of Molina’s bat Sunday. Both times he temporarily silenced a crowd that has embraced booing him as a tradition ever since the August 2010 run-in at Great American with Phillips and starting pitcher Johnny Cueto.
Cueto was supposed to start Sunday’s series finale until a blister on his right index finger forced Homer Bailey to move his scheduled start up two days.
The same maddening trends that handcuffed the Cardinals against Mat Latos and Mike Leake the previous two days resurfaced against Bailey. Opportunities with runners on base came and went with regularity. Because Molina’s RBI came on a home run and with a runner at first base, the Cardinals were shut out with runners in scoring position after managing four hits in such situations the first two games.
Molina gave the Cardinals the game’s first lead with first baseman Lance Berkman as the subplot.
Berkman started his first game since May 9 and reached to lead off the second inning when Votto boxed his ordinary-looking ground ball.
Berkman’s knees required surgery less than two months ago. So naturally his wheels would be tested his first time on base.
Molina’s double went to the left-field wall, allowing Berkman to score from first base. He would later try to beat out a double-play grounder. Fortunately for his club, Berkman finished each jaunt without a limp.
The Cardinals again received a solid outing from their starting pitcher.
Westbrook suffered two-out damage in the third inning but little else until the eighth. After a strikeout and a ground ball, Westbrook surrendered a single to center fielder Chris Heisey. The hit became far more when first baseman Votto split the outfield.
The rally continued when Phillips lobbed an RBI single over second base for a 2-1 lead.
