The Cardinals and Dodgers spent Wednesday night trading punches, but St. Louis landed the last and biggest ones.
After giving up a 5-2 lead through six innings, the Cardinals clawed all the way back, tied the game with a pair of runs in the seventh and another in the eighth, then finished the job with three runs in the 10th for an 8-6 win in Los Angeles. It came one night after St. Louis opened the series with a 13-8 victory, making this one of the wildest two-game stretches the club has had all season.
What made this comeback stand out was who carried it. Three young players helped drag the Cardinals back into the game and then over the finish line.
Thomas Saggese kept swinging like a guy who has found something. He launched his third homer of the season and finished with three RBIs, adding to the huge night he had in the series opener when he blasted two homers.
The 24-year-old began the year on the Opening Day roster, but his offense never really got rolling. After bouncing around and not getting steady at-bats, he finally looks more like the hitter the Cardinals believe he can be.
With Masyn Winn, JJ Wetherholt, and Blaze Jordan on the Injured List, he’s back in the big leagues and making the most of it.
Leo Bernal added another jolt in the seventh inning, when he hit the first big league homer of his professional career. Bernal had already driven in two runs on Tuesday after replacing Jimmy Crooks on the big league roster, and he followed that up with a homer and two more RBIs Wednesday. The Cardinals have handed him a real opportunity down the stretch, and he’s already making noise.
Then Joshua Báez put the game away. His two-run double in the 10th gave St. Louis the cushion it needed to finally close out the Dodgers.
The Cardinals came out of it at 70-70, back to .500 with 22 games left. For one night, the young bats did exactly what St. Louis needed.
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