The St. Louis Cardinals started their road trip with a four-game series against the Mets and failed to capitalize when given opportunities to score. Strong pitching again gave the team a chance, but the bats went silent, leading to the Cardinals second sweep of the season. The Cardinals had won their previous two series heading into New York, taking two out of three against the Phillies and Astros.

Game one was a little bit of a clunker on both sides of the ball, but there were a couple positives to take out of the 4-1 loss on Thursday. The second game was the Cardinals’ best chance at a win but saw it slip away late. The final two games of the series really put the struggling offense at the forefront, wasting decent pitching performances to complete the sweep.

GAME ONE (L 4-1)

After trading zeroes in the first inning, Mets starter Griffin Canning (2-1) set the Cardinals down in order in the second. Andre Pallante (2-1) was looking to build off his best performance of the year, a seven-inning shutout of the Phillies, but that scoreless streak ended in the home half of the inning. Mets third baseman Mark Vientos drove a Pallante fastball 100.1 mph down the right field line and the ball nailed the foul (fair) pole for a solo home run.

The inning snowballed from there as for of the next five Mets batters tallied a hit, adding on another three runs in the inning. The last run of the frame scored on a Francisco Lindor single that drove in Brett Bay and Tyrone Taylor. To avoid a bang-bang play at the plate, Lindor strayed far enough from the first base bag to get in a rundown, extending the play long enough for Taylor to score before Lindor was tagged out.

The Cardinals chipped away in the top of the third but looked poised for more. Victor Scott II started off the inning with a single and then stole his seventh base of the year after initially being ruled out before a manager review overturned the call. Canning struck out Lars Nootbaar and Jordan Walker, leaving Scott in scoring position with two outs. Brendan Donovan stepped in and extended his hitting streak to an MLB-leading 13 games when his groundball single drove in Scott. Nolan Arenado then grounded out to end the inning with the Cardinals trailing 4-1.

After the busy first two innings, both offenses went quiet, failing to get a runner into scoring position again until the seventh inning. Pallante’s adjustment after the second inning allowed him to throw six frames in total. The right-hander only allowed one baserunner after the four-run inning and ended his day allowing seven hits while striking out two. Canning confused the St. Louis hitters all night, tallying a season-high eight strikeouts and allowed only the one run to score on three hits and two walks.

Reliever Matt Svanson was called up to freshen up the bullpen and took the place of Roddery Munoz in the relief corps. Svanson made his major league debut in the bottom of the seventh inning, throwing a scoreless inning before giving way to John King, who responded with a zero of his own. The Mets bullpen was great behind Canning, allowing a total of two baserunners, including one against closer Edwin Diaz, who grabbed his fourth save of the year with a scoreless ninth inning.

GAME TWO (L 5-4)

The Cardinals grabbed their first lead of the series in the second inning of game two when Brendan Donovan kept his hitting streak alive with a one-out single. With two outs, Thomas Saggese and Pedro Pages each hit singles of their own, with Pages’ squeaking through the right side to knock in Donovan. Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas responded in the bottom of the inning when he set down the Mets in order.

The lead would double in the top of the fourth inning thanks to another well-placed groundball. Nolan Arenado led off with a hit but Donovan’s force out replaced the runner at first. This came into play when Mets starter David Peterson’s wild pitch allowed Donovan to move to second. Jordan Walker then smoked a 104.8 mph grounder to the right side that tipped off the glove of first baseman Pete Alonso and scooted far enough from the nearest fielder that Donovan was able to score.

Mikolas was doing his job on the mound until the fifth when he gave up back-to-back extra base hits that cut the lead to 2-1. He was able to get a flyout before the expensive Juan Soto singled home the tying run. Manager Oli Marmol decided that was enough of Mikolas for the day and called on John King, who ended the inning with a Jesse Winker lineout.

The offense showed fight quickly after losing the lead in the sixth inning. Willson Contreras smoked a double to left and was driven in by Arenado one hitter later. After a fielder’s choice moved Arenado to second with just one out, the Mets went to the bullpen and Max Kranick got Walker and Saggese to stop the lead from swelling. The Cardinals bullpen was unable to match Kranick when Marmol went to Kyle Leahy in the bottom of the inning. This quickly backfired when Mark Vientos hit his first homer of the year to tie the game once again.

After a scoreless seventh inning, the Mets used a chaos-filled eighth inning to grab the lead. Vientos started the inning against reliever Phil Maton with a 106 mph single to left and was replaced on the bases by Luisangel Acuna, who promptly stole second. An awkwardly hit grounder to Arenado at third paired with the aggressive baserunning of Acuna caused a race to the bag. Arenado dove to nab the baserunner at third but Acuna was called safe before oversliding the base and Arenado kept his glove on Acuna for the out. The Mets challenged the ruling but the out call stood. Maton then had a pickoff attempt go awry, giving the Mets a runner in scoring position and Luis Torrens drove in the go ahead run with a double.

The St. Louis offense battled back again in the ninth, taking advantage of overpowering Edwin Diaz being unavailable in the game. Donovan made that hurt, when he turned on a hanging changeup from Huascar Brazoban (1-0) and hit the foul pole for the tying blast. Brazoban made quick work of the next three hitters, though, striking all three out swinging to keep the game tied going into the home half.

Marmol rolled the dice with reliever Ryan Fernandez (0-2), opting to save closer Ryan Helsley, as 100% of all major league managers do, for a save opportunity. Fernandez has struggled most of the season after a lockdown 2024 and those issues continued against Lindor. A poorly located cutter to the shortstop was hammered 401 feet away for a walk-off victory. The homer was Lindor’s second of the season and 250th of his career.

GAME THREE (L 3-0)

The emotional loss on Friday evening took the wind out of the sails after the Cardinals came back twice just to fall in walk-off fashion. The offense was tasked with facing Kodai Senga (3-1), who was coming off two straight starts where he allowed no runs. Senga kept that momentum going with his signature “ghost fork”, and kept the Cardinal hitters off-balance all afternoon.

Also coming off his best start of the season was St. Louis starter Matthew Liberatore (1-2), fresh off a six-inning shutout of the Phillies. Both starters had their stuff working early but the Mets offense got to Liberatore first, this time in the third inning. Luisangel Acuna started off the inning with a double and the Cardinals starter responded well, getting the next two hitters to ground out to the left side, leaving Acuna standing at second with two outs. The high-priced heart of the order came through once again for New York when Juan Soto hit an RBI single who then scored on Pete Alonso’s RBI double. Liberatore stopped the inning there but the damage was done.

Senga was in control for the rest of this start, really only facing trouble when Thomas Saggese hit a leadoff double in the fifth but was thrown out at home trying to score on a grounder to third. In Senga’s sixth and final inning of work, he walked Lars Nootbaar then Willson Contreras hit a single. Brendan Donovan, needing a hit to preserve his 14-game hitting streak, hit into a rally-killing double play to put a runner on third with two outs. The final pitch of Senga’s game went up and in on Arenado, plunking the third baseman and ending the starting pitcher’s day. Reed Garrett was called on to relieve Senga and got a harmless ground out to keep the Cardinals off the board.

Liberatore was solid for most of his evening, working into the seventh inning and striking out six Mets hitters in his 100-pitch starter. The lefty was pulled with two outs in the seventh for John King who ended the inning with a groundout. The Cardinals were set up for a comeback again in the eighth thanks to three walks but Lindor made a great play up the middle on a Burleson grounder to end the inning and the St. Louis threat. The Mets added an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth when Alonso hit a mammoth homer 443 feet to left.

Edwin Diaz, who was unavailable in game two of the series, came on and ended the game with a 19-pitch, two strikeout save. The loss sealed a series defeat for the Cardinals, who were coming off two series wins in a row. In the shutout loss, St. Louis was 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position.

GAME FOUR (L 7-4)

The Cardinals went into the Sunday afternoon game looking to avoid their second sweep of the series but things got off to a loud start in the bottom of the first inning when series-nemesis Francisco Lindor took St. Louis starter Sonny Gray deep for an early 1-0 Mets lead. Gray kept the score there until the third when two singles and a sacrifice fly doubled the lead to two but the Cardinals offense looked ready to answer back in the fourth inning.

Willson Contreras and Alec Burleson each knocked one-out singles but a Jordan Walker strikeout and Nolan Gorman flyout ended the threat, continuing the issues with runners in scoring position. Gray battled to keep the score there in the fourth, leaving two runners on after a popout brought the game to the fifth. Gray looked to be settling in when he got two quick outs in the fifth but that brought up the problematic middle of the Mets order again, who capitalized with two outs. Juan Soto reached on a single to right then moved up to second on a wild pitch and scored when Pete Alonso drove him in with a single of his own before Gray ended the inning with a strikeout.

The Cardinals finally got to Mets starter Clay Holmes in the sixth thanks to a Donovan lead off double who, after a wild pitch, was knocked in by a Burleson ground out. Holmes finished his day in style, thanks to some help from left fielder Brandon Nimmo. Walker smoked a long fly ball to left but Nimmo tracked it well the whole way and a perfect-timed jump robbed Walker of a homer and sent the game into the late innings.

Getting Holmes out of the game finally sparked some offense from the away team as the Cardinals finally cashed in with runners in scoring position and two outs. Nolan Gorman and Luken Baker sat at first and second when Thomas Saggese, who’s short-term fit with the club is in question when Masyn Winn returns, continued his tryout with a game-tying double off of reliever Jose Butto (2-0) before being stranded at second.

Like the Mets pen, the Cardinals relief corps struggled to keep the score as is and a combination of JoJo Romero (1-2) and Phil Maton allowed the go-ahead run to score when a single off the bat of Nimmo drove in Lindor. The Cardinals relievers struggled again in the 8th with Ryan Fernandez on the mound who immediately ran into trouble, giving up three runs on three doubles in the inning, making the score 7-3 going into the ninth. The Cardinals tried but failed to mount another comeback but scraped in one more run when Lars Nootbaar drove in Michael Siani with a single but that’s as close as they would get, ending the game and the series with a 7-4 loss.

The rough series dropped the Cardinals to 9-13 overall and fourth-place in the NL Central. The road struggles continued in the sweep as St. Louis fell to 1-9 on the road and look to salvage the roadtrip when they begin a three-game series against the Atlanta Braves.