St. Louis Cardinals defeat Houston Astros 6-5 – MLB Update
St. Louis Cardinals secured a difficult 6-5 victory on Wednesday, April 27 against Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park, Houston.
Wednesday’s game was indeed a team effort with a couple of stars like Kyle Lohse, Matt Holliday and Tyler Greene shining with their brilliant performances. Houston made a good attempt to make a come-back in the game during the last two innings when they
charged Ryan Franklin and Fernando Salas to score five runs in the two innings.
That the duo could fall a victim to Houston’s offence was unexpected. However, someone who was simply unplayable and rendered Houston’s offence incapable until the seventh inning was Kyle Lohse. The performance was an additional enhancement to an already
confident Cardinals team manager who expressed his delight with Lohse. "We've seen Kyle like this," manager Tony La Russa said. "This is a guy that won 15 games for us [in 2008]. I think he's just pleased that he's going out there with weapons to compete that
give him a fair chance. He's been going out there with less than his best and taking a beating at times. I think he just enjoys having a fair chance."
Lohse began it fast and kept increasing the pace of his pitches without being deterred. While the defence was seemingly vulnerable, the Cardinals’ offence started showing their strength. The fourth inning brought the first run for St. Louis, as Matt Holliday
homered to left on J.A. Happ’s fastball. The Cardinals doubled the lead in the fifth inning with Tyler Greene’s run. Lohse, on the other hand, completely restricted Houston’s offence.
Cardinals achieved a seemingly unsurpassable 6-0 lead in the seventh inning when their offence took on Enerio Del Rosario and piled up four runs with five massive hits. Nick Punto singled to shallow centre followed by Albert Pujols who singled to left. Matt
Holliday was next, as he singled to left and then Lance Berkman who singled to right. While the runs flowed, Del Rosario was left helplessly watching. However, Houston did put up some efforts in the end to make life difficult for the Cardinals.
Ryan Franklin was charged aggressively by the Astros’ batters. Angel Sanchez, Hunter Pence and Brett Wallace had four hits to score three runs in the 8th inning, bringing the lead down to 6-3. Jason Bourgeois and Michael Bourn scored two more
runs in the inning before Fernando Salas beat Hunter Pence to restrict Houston to five, making it a tough 6-5 victory for St. Louis Cardinals.
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