Allen Craig, Jaime Garcia shine but St. Louis Cardinals fall short – MLB Update
St. Louis Cardinals’ starter Jaime Garcia and pinch hitter Allen Craig starred in Game 2 of the World Series, but the team failed to capitalise on their contributions and lost 1-2 against Texas Rangers on Thursday, October 20 at Busch Stadium in St. Louis,
Missouri.
Carrying on from where Chris Carpenter left in Game 1, Garcia kept the Rangers at bay throughout his spell of seven innings, allowing just three hits and striking-out seven batters to exhibit his dominance from the mound.
Garcia was removed after the Cardinals’ earned a one-run advantage in the seventh inning. Manager Tony La Russa, showing confidence in his bull-pen, instilled Fernando Salas on the hill in a bid to hand over the lead to seasoned closer Jason Motte. Salas
combined with Mark Rzepczynski in the eighth inning to successfully keep the advantage, but it was Motte who lost accuracy in the ninth inning and lost the game for the Redbirds.
Explaining his lacklustre performance, Motte said, "It stinks. It's one of those things," Motte said. "I went out there and made a good pitch to Kinsler, and he did a good piece of hitting and got enough on it to get it out of the reach of Furcal. The next
one, I threw another cutter, and it just wasn't a good pitch. It moved, came back, just stayed middle and spun up there."
La Russa was not satisfied with his team’s showing and asserted that the game started as a great story for the Cardinals, but turned out to be a greater one for the opposition.
Craig, coming in for Garcia as pinch hitter in the seventh inning, made full use of the opportunity and partnered with David Freese in a replica of Game 1 to give the Cardinals a one-run lead in the game, which was not congenial for the batters.
Craig drove in a single for NLCS MVP Freese to score, but the effort could not yield anything positive for the Redbirds. The team, however, remained confident of bouncing back in Game 3, scheduled for Saturday, October 22.
It will be interesting to see if the Cardinals can adapt to American League-style of play.
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