ST. LOUIS -- St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Matheny had taken to marking certain victories as potential momentum starters earlier this season, but after his predictions failed to come true time after time, he decided simply to let the season unfold.
So, he didn’t make any bold pronouncements after the Cardinals swept a doubleheader from the San Diego Padres Wednesday or rallied from a 5-1 deficit in the final two innings Thursday. And he wasn’t going to start after they outlasted the Los Angeles Dodgers in 16 innings for a 4-3 win on Friday either.
Matheny knew they had all but stolen this one.
“Shoot, they’d outhit us, what, 11-1 at one point,” Matheny said. “To us, that’s just scratching and clawing and figuring out how to stay in it.”
The Cardinals have equaled their longest winning streak of the season, five games, and if the season ended today, they would be alive for a playoff spot. They are in a tie with the Miami Marlins for the second wild-card spot and just a game behind the Dodgers for the first.
If anything, these last few games have been about the Cardinals’ luck evening out. They are finally winning close games, even in circumstances like Friday’s, when they probably had no business being in the game so late. The Dodgers let the Cardinals stick around, and the Cardinals’ bullpen gradually wrested control long enough to allow Matt Adams to hit the decisive home run after midnight.
Much of the season, the Cardinals have had the third-best run differential in the National League with nowhere near the third-best record. They have now won three straight one-run games, exactly the kind they weren’t winning most of this season. They are eight games over .500 for the first time in 2016.
The Cardinals made Friday possible by forgetting about Sunday. The team was planning to start Tyler Lyons on Sunday, but that plan went out the window when Matheny decided to use Lyons for multiple innings. The reliever rewarded him by pitching 4 2/3 scoreless innings. Now, they’ll have to scramble for another alternative for Sunday, whether it’s Matt Bowman, Trevor Rosenthal or Triple-A right-hander Mike Mayers.
“Let’s go after this with everything we’ve got, and we’ll figure out Sunday on Sunday or maybe tomorrow,” Matheny said.
Two of the hottest hitters in the game beat two of the stingiest relievers in the game to send it into extra innings. Justin Turner hit his fifth home run in his last seven games off Cardinals closer Seung Hwan Oh in the top of the ninth to give the Dodgers a lead. Jedd Gyorko hit his fifth home run in his last five games off Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen in the bottom of the ninth.
The Dodgers were poised to win it after Joc Pederson ran down Tommy Pham’s drive to the alley in right-center field, tumbling to make a brilliant catch near the Cardinals’ bullpen. Turner then connected with a solo home run to the grass berm beyond the center-field wall.
Before that, the Cardinals nearly stole a game they had no business winning.
The Cardinals maximized their chances. The Dodgers minimized theirs. That allowed Michael Wacha to pitch Brandon McCarthy to a draw despite the Dodgers outhitting the Cardinals 10-1 through the first six innings. The only action the Cardinals generated came in the third inning, when a pair of walks presented an opportunity for Aledmys Diaz, who drove a line drive into the left-center gap. When Pederson misplayed it, Pham scored all the way from first to give the Cardinals a 2-1 lead.
Wacha was directing traffic all night, somehow navigating his way through six innings by frustrating the Dodgers with runners on base. He was able to dig deep enough to get through the sixth inning, in part because Dodgers manager Dave Roberts let McCarthy bat for himself with runners on second and third with one out. McCarthy, who had allowed just one hit to that point, hit a harmless grounder to Wacha, and Chase Utley popped up. McCarthy had to leave the game after 6 1/3 brilliant innings because of a calf cramp.