A 4-spot in the second downs the Cards at Citi Field
Thanks in large part to a four-run second inning, the Cardinals (9-10) dropped game one of its four-game series against the New York Mets (12-7) Thursday night at Citi Field by a score of 4-1.
Andre Pallante took the loss for St. Louis as he gave up four runs and seven hits across six innings. Matt Svanson made his Major League debut and pitched the seventh inning, where he allowed a double to Brett Baty, but otherwise didn’t make things worse for the Cards; John King took the mound in the eighth and aside from issuing a one-out walk to near-billionaire Juan Soto, pitched a clean inning.
One bad inning shouldn’t doom a professional baseball team, but the Cardinal offense unfortunately did not make the team flight from St. Louis to New York. The Cards were limited to just three hits—one of which was a bunt single by Alec Burleson—and struck out 11 times.
St. Louis certainly had its chance early. Burleson popped out to Francisco Lindor that ended the first inning and stranded Brendan Donovan and Nolan Arenado. That would be as close as the Cardinals would ever get to having a lead, as the Mets took advantage with four runs immediately after.
New York first got on the board when Mark Vientos hit his first home run of 2025 to right field and gave the Mets a 1-0 lead. Starling Marte then hit a double to left field and was brought home two batters later thanks to Baty singling to left. Lindor then tacked on two runs for the Mets. He hit a liner to right that scored Baty, and then Lindor allowed himself to get caught in a run down which cleared the way for Tyrone Taylor to come home for the Mets’ fourth run.
St. Louis’ one and only run came in the third inning, which was set up by Jordan Walker singling to centerfield. Walker was able to steal second base, and while he was originally called out on the play, replay review showed he was safe and Walker collected steal No. 7 on the year. Walker gained another 90 feet because of a wild pitch, and Donovan brought him home to put the Cards on the board.
The Cards bats were virtually non-existent Thursday night, and after getting a leadoff single in the fourth, St. Louis had 10 straight batters retired. In fact, St. Louis would only two base runners the rest of the night, both coming via walk: Nolan Gorman walked in the seventh, and Arenado walked to lead off the ninth. Aside from that? Absolutely nothing.
The Cards and Mets pick things up again tomorrow at 6:10 P.M. Miles Mikolas will go up against David Peterson.