After the win in Wild Card playoff, St. Louis Cardinals lose in the NLDS Game 1 – Part 1
This is a series of five articles summarizing the National League Division Series played between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Washington Nationals.
The defending World Series champion St. Louis Cardinals stormed their way into the National League Division Series after they overpowered the Atlanta Braves by 6-3 in the Wild Card playoff. However, the NLDS Game 1 turned out to be a stiff encounter as the Washington Nationals inflicted 3-2 defeat on the Redbirds.
At Busch Stadium, the scintillating competition for victory was desirably perfected by Tyler Moore’s two-two-run single in the eighth, rooting the Cardinals out of the Game 1 with the win.
The Washington Nationals came with Gio Gonzalez while the Cardinals had to rely on their ace Adam Wainwright. But while Wainwright successfully executed 5.2 innings, allowing only a run, it was the Cardinals bullpen that struggled.
Kurt Suzuki scored for the Washington Nationals in the second inning, something that did not last long as the Cardinals batters moved up after going down. Yadier Molina scored in the second inning and Jon Jay hit a sacrifice fly to give the Cardinals a 2-1 lead.
But while the Cardinals’ dominance seemed manifestly clear and seemingly unshakable given the solid bullpen that they had, it was the Washington Nationals that had surprises to offer for the Cardinals.
Even with the 2-1 lead, the Cardinals could not consummate the win as Tyler Moore made most use of an opportunity that came the team’s way in the eighth inning, scoring two-run single to make it 3-2 for the Washington Nationals.
"I was just trying to calm myself down and try to make some things happen and not strike out up there," Moore said. "I wanted to at least put something into play."
Mitchell Boggs who was fairly successful in the bullpen in the playoff could not hold the Nationals’ batters at bay despite giving his best shot, surrendering two expensive runs.
With the 3-2 lead their way, the Nationals bullpen did the rest of the task without disappointing the team, thus compensating the bad start that Gonzalez had made.
"All the credit in the world goes to the bullpen," Gonzalez said. "I've been saying it all year. The reason why we've been so successful is these guys come in and shut it down."
With the defeat, the Cardinals – nevertheless, were to enter into the NLDS Game 2 with more preparation and toughness to prevail over the Nationals.
That is what they did as they re-organised themselves and were looking to put in the long haul during this series as the Nationals were not going to go out quietly.
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