Cardinals can't overcome Wainwright's 'terrible' night against the Giants
ST. LOUIS -- You can't shut 'em out every night. Cardinals ace Adam Wainwright didn't come close to stopping or even slowing down the San Francisco Giants on Friday night.
In what he called his worst start of the season, Wainwright lasted only 4 1/3 innings and gave up seven runs on eight hits, and his ERA climbed from a majors-best 1.67 to 2.32.
"Tonight was just terrible," Wainwright said after the 9-4 loss. "Unfortunately, you have a couple of nights a year like that. You try to limit how many of those you have. That was not good."
The 20-inning scoreless streak that Wainwright brought into the game ended in the first inning. Angel Pagan led off with an opposite-field double on a sinker that was at least half a foot outside and, two outs later, was driven in by Mike Morse's broken-bat single.
The Giants were just getting going. Wainwright retired the first two Giants in the second but walked eight-hole hitter Brandon Hicks and gave up a single to starter Madison Bumgarner. Pagan followed with a run-scoring single and then Hunter Pence blew the game open by slugging a hanging curveball 447 feet into the left-field seats for a three-run homer
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"That's the game right there," Wainwright said.
While admittedly frustrated, Wainwright already was well on the way to forgetting about this one by the time it ended.
"The knee-jerk reaction is to look at this game and think you've wasted a lot of good starts with one game," he said. "But that's exactly what it is, one game. I'm in a very good place. I just have to flush this one and move on to the next."
3 UP
-- Matt Carpenter. On a night when few Cardinals did anything off Giants lefty Madison Bumgarner, Carpenter continued his hot hitting. He extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a double and a single, accounting for two of the three hits in the seven innings against Bumgarner. Carpenter is hitting .377 (20 for 53) during the streak.
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-- Jon Jay. With Oscar Taveras on the way to the majors, Jay's playing time could take another dip. But he continues to make something out of his limited opportunities. Inserted into the blowout to give Matt Holliday a few innings off, Jay drove in the Cardinals' first three runs with a bases-loaded double off lefty reliever David Huff in the eighth inning. He then scored the fourth on a double by Allen Craig.
-- Catchers turned managers. Eleven former catchers are managing in the majors this season and Mike Matheny seems to be facing most of them. A three-time Gold Glove winner as a catcher, Matheny is in the midst of a run of facing ex-backstops in five straight series: the Yankees' Joe Girardi, the Giants' Bruce Bochy, the Royals' Ned Yost, the Blue Jays' John Gibbons and the Rays' Joe Maddon. Matheny has been on the losing end in four of the first five games.
3 DOWN
-- Homestand. After going 7-2 in a homestand that ended last Thursday, the Cardinals have not come close to repeating such success in this nine-game run at Busch Stadium. Friday's loss was their third straight and fourth in five games since they returned home after winning last weekend's series in Cincinnati.
-- Peter Bourjos. He struck out twice and didn't get the ball out of the infield as he endured his third 0-for-4 of the week. In the other game, he was 1 for 4. Bourjos' batting average has fallen to .204 from his season high, .230, on May 17. After the game, GM John Mozeliak said Bourjos probably is looking at a "diminished" role in the coming games.
-- Seth Maness. He had allowed only one run in 10 innings in May, but entering in relief of Wainwright, he was roughed up by the Giants. Maness allowed both runners he inherited from Wainwright to score and then, after working a clean sixth inning, made his own trouble in the seventh. He was charged with two runs while giving up four hits in 1 2/3 innings. Opponents are batting .340 off the right-hander.
You can follow Stan McNeal on Twitter at @stanmcneal or email him at stanmcneal@gmail.com.
