Chi. Cubs 4, St. Louis 3
When: 8:05 PM ET, Tuesday, September 23, 2014
Where: Wrigley Field, Chicago, Illinois
Temperature:
65°
Umpires:
Home -
James Hoye, 1B -
Mark Carlson, 2B -
Bill Welke, 3B -
Paul Emmel
Attendance:
29754
By SportsDirect Inc.
Cubs 4, Cardinals 3 (10): Welington Castillo belted a two-run homer and delivered a walk-off single in the bottom of the 10th as host Chicago stalled St. Louis' bid for a second straight division title.
Castillo drove a pitch from Pat Neshek to deep right-center to plate Anthony Rizzo after the Cardinals elected to intentionally walk Luis Valbuena to hand the Cardinals only their third loss in 11 games and cut their lead in the National League Central to 1 1/2 games over Pittsburgh. Matt Szczur also homered, Rizzo had three hits and Zac Rosscup (1-0) struck out two in the 10th to earn his first major-league win.
Matt Holliday went 2-for-5 with a two-run homer for St. Louis, which has a magic number of four to win the division title. Matt Carpenter added two hits and reached base four times for the Cardinals, who have four games remaining.
Shelby Miller, who entered having allowed two earned runs in his previous four starts, matched that total when Castillo followed a leadoff walk by Valbuena in the second by crushing a belt-high fastball well back into the seats in left. Chicago added to the lead in the fifth on Szczur's leadoff blast but the Cardinals tied it in their next at-bat.
Singles by Oscar Taveras and Carpenter, and Jon Jay's groundout produced one run before Holliday pulled St. Louis even with a bullet into the seats in left to end Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks' night. Rizzo started the winning rally in the 10th with a one-out double off the wall in center field and moved to third on Jorge Soler's groundout to set the stage for Castillo.
GAME NOTEBOOK: Miller struck out a season-high eight but gave up three runs in 4 1/3 innings while Hendricks permitted three runs over 5 1/3 innings. ... Holliday extended his hitting streak to six games by going deep against the Cubs for the sixth time this year, giving him 20 homers for the ninth consecutive season. ... Szczur hit his second homer of the year and first at Wrigley Field.
Top Game Performances
Team Stats Summary
Team |
Hits |
HR |
TB |
Avg |
LOB |
K |
RBI |
BB |
SB |
Errors |
St. Louis
|
8 |
1 |
13 |
.216 |
13 |
7 |
3 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
Chi. Cubs
|
9 |
2 |
17 |
.237 |
14 |
14 |
4 |
4 |
0 |
1 |