NLDS: St. Louis Cardinals continue the winning race with 8-0 over Washington Nationals – Part 3
With the 12-4 win that the St. Louis Cardinals scored in the Game 2, it was Chris Carpenter who wrote, and perfectly executed a winning script for the Redbirds in the Game 3, giving the team an 8-0 victory.
While there had earlier been news of Carpenter missing the whole season due to the Tommy John surgery that he underwent for curing numbness on his right side, he seemed an entirely different pitcher on the mound. With the characteristic fashion, he shut the Washington Nationals batters out.
While his unplayable pitches made things difficult for the Washington Nationals’ batters, it was the Cardinals’ offence that came down hard on the Nationals pitchers. Allen Craig was the first one to score with double to shallow left against Edwin Jackson.
Pete Kozma became the second Cardinals’ shortstop in the team’s history to smash a three-run homer in any post-season game, taking the Cardinals lead to 4-0 by the end of the second inning.
With Jackson struggling, the Nationals brought in Craig Stammen but David Descalso hit a sacrifice fly to right to take the Cardinals lead to irreversible 5-0.
With Carpenter doing his bit with ball, pitching 5.2 strong innings, the Cardinals maintained their 5-0 lead, as the Washington Nationals failed to bounce back. For Carpenter, these were some rare moments.
"To go from not being able to compete, and not only compete but help your team, to be able to be in this situation," Carpenter said, "it's pretty cool."
"Carp's been a dominant pitcher his whole career. Big-game pitcher. He showed up," Washington's Jayson Werth said. "He pitched well today. We had him in some spots. We had him on the ropes a couple of times. We were just one bloop away from a totally different ballgame."
As Carpenter seemed to be almost out of the season, this postseason show launched him back – with an emphatic win to his credit.
"Everyone had written him off, kind of," Jon Jay said. "It could have been a season-ending injury, where he could have just gone home and said, `See you later.’"
Yadier Molina made it 6-0 and Matt Holliday scored two-run single to help the team have a dominant 8-0 lead as the bullpen managing it as far as defence was concerned. It was Joe Kelly who pitched a scoreless ninth to end the game with 8-0, giving the Cardinals 2-1 lead in the NLDS.
Once again the Cardinals dominated the Nationals and basically showed why they are the defending World Series champions. It looked as if the Nationals really did not have an answer to the dominating offence of the Cardinals.
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