After the Cardinals dropped the last two games of the Chicago Cubs series to split a four-game set, the Cardinals refused to hit the panic button and pressed forward to complete a sweep of the Cleveland Guardians on a beautiful Sunday afternoon at Progressive Field.
In Game 1, Sonny Gray put on a show, tossing an 89-pitch complete game shutout with 11 strikeouts and yielding only a 5th inning hit, his only obstacle from perfection in a 5-0 win. The Guardians appeared to be out for revenge in game 2 after taking a 6-1 lead in the 4th inning on Saturday, but the Cardinals did what they do best; they refused to quit and put their foot on the gas and scored eight unanswered runs from a combination of ABC baseball and a couple of homeruns. The Redbird offense struck after a big Guardians 4th inning, where the Cardinal’s stole game two 9-6.
Game 3 led off with a bang. In the first inning, DH Nolan Gorman went yard with a three-run bomb (7) into the right field bleachers with the help of a Masyn Winn walk and Wilson Contreras base hit. Gorman’s big fly was ultimately the deciding factor as the red bird bats have caught fire by courtesy of homeruns the past two weeks. Center fielder Victor Scott II jumped in on the home run train in the 7th with a two-run blast (4), scoring catcher Pedro Pages. Small ball from an 8th inning Pages sac fly and Garret Hampson RBI single made it 7-0, Cardinals.
“It’s huge,” DH Nolan Gorman said about his early three-run-bomb. “When you’re already up 2-0 on the series and jump out to a lead and let our pitchers do their thing, where they did a great job today, it’s big.”
In the first 60 games of play, Cardinals were 25th in the MLB in home runs, relying solely on small ball and situational hitting to score runs. In the past two weeks, the Redbirds are 7th in bombs across the league, while retaining their “time to hit, time to slug” mentality. Combining this refreshing trend with excellent starting pitching, series sweeps are well within reach, as seen by this weekend’s team-wide performance.
Starting pitcher Matthew Liberatore pitched 6 scoreless innings with 5 K’s, working around 5 walks and 3 hits. The bullpen answered the bell yet again with 3.0 scoreless innings, starting with Jojo Romero when he relieved Liberatore in the 7th. Romero silenced Cleveland with two clutch strikeouts and executed a groundball off the bat of right fielder Steven Kwan after inheriting a 7th inning two walks no-out threat. Riley O’Brien got some work in a scoreless 8th with a couple of walks before handing the 9th over to lefty John King to complete the sweep of the Cleveland Guardians 7-0.
3rd Baseman Nolan Arenado was removed from the game after reaching 1st base in the 8th after jamming his right index finger after making a play at 3rd. As of now, Arenado’s removal was precautionary. Jose Fermin pinch ran and led a double steal which proved effective as both he and Nolan Gorman scored later in the inning.
“If you’re going to say anything about this club is that they have grit,” Oliver Marmol said following the game 3 sweep. “They don’t give in. They’re going to give you everything they’ve got until the game is over and we saw that throughout this series.”
Marmol couldn’t have asked for a better start to a 9-game road trip than this weekend. They only trail 2.5 GB behind the 1st place Chicago Cubs and are now a season high of 9 GB above .500. The Cardinals head to Pittsburgh to face the Pirates in a three-game set, followed by another three-gamer at Wrigley to rematch the Cubs on Independence Day weekend.
The Cardinals (47-38) take on the Pittsburgh Pirates (35-50) on Monday at 5:40 PM CDT.
I'm a writer trying to make his mark in the baseball journalism world. I graduated with a journalism degree from Union University where I pitched four years of D2 baseball.
