Field Level Media
Jul 5, 2018
St. Louis catcher Yadier Molina had two hits, including a three-run homer to cap a five-run seventh inning, and Tommy Pham added three hits and three RBIs as the Cardinals took the rubber game of a three-game series with an 8-4 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Wednesday in Phoenix.
Yairo Munoz homered to open the seventh inning to tie the game at 2 off Yoshihisa Hirano (2-1), breaking Hirano's 26-game scoreless streak. Pham added an RBI single after an infield error before Molina homered off Fernando Salas.
Matt Carpenter had three hits and Miles Mikolas (9-3) gave up two runs in six innings for the Cardinals (44-41). St. Louis was in danger of dropping to within one game of .500 for the first time since April 14.
Jon Jay had three hits, David Peralta had two hits and Jake Lamb had an RBI single for Arizona, which has lost five of six after winning seven of eight.
Mikolas gave up seven hits and four walks while striking out three. Both he and Arizona starter Patrick Corbin entered the game in the National League's top 10 in ERA, WHIP, WAR and innings pitched among qualifiers.
Corbin allowed six hits and one run in six innings, with two walks and six strikeouts. He has given up two earned runs and struck out 23 in his past three starts, covering 19 innings, but all were no-decisions.
Arizona scored twice in the fourth inning off Mikolas to break a scoreless tie. Jarrod Dyson walked and took second on Corbin's one-out sacrifice bunt before Jay singled to left.
Dyson slipped as he rounded third base and went back to the bag, but he scored when third baseman Carpenter overthrew second base attempting to catch Jay advancing. Lamb singled to drive in Jay for a 2-1 lead.
Dyson was forced to leave in the seventh inning with an apparent groin injury.
Carpenter hit the second of his two doubles with one out in the fifth inning and scored on Pham's single to cut the deficit to 2-1.
The Diamondbacks used a walk, a single and Carpenter's second throwing error to score two runs in the bottom of the seventh to close within 6-4 before Carpenter and Pham had RBI hits in the eighth.
In giving up Munoz's homer, Hirano finished one scoreless appearance short of former Boston Red Sox right-hander Koji Uehara's major league record for a Japanese-born player, 27, set in 2013.
--Field Level Media