CHICAGO — The Cardinals might have lost more than a game on Friday night.
Jordan Montgomery, the Cardinals’ best and most consistent starter over the last month, had to come out of the game in the fifth inning with what appeared to be an injury to his right hamstring.
The Cardinals said Montgomery was being evaluated by the team’s medical personnel and did not have a report on his condition immediately available after the game.
When Montgomery left, the Cardinals were leading 5-1. But the White Sox sent 17 batters to the plate in the sixth and seventh inning against four St. Louis relievers, scoring seven runs, to win the opener of the three-game series in Chicago.
Here is how Friday night’s game broke down:
At the plate: Nolan Arenado hit two homers, his 18th and 19th of the season, to drive in four runs. His two-run homer in the third helped the Cardinals stake Montgomery to an early 5-0 lead. He also hit a two-run homer in the seventh that temporarily gave the Cardinals a 7-6 lead … Ivan Herrera, making his first statt of the season, had an RBI double in the second and drove in another run with a single in the third … The Cardinals had 16 hits in the game, matching their most in a game this season, including three each from Brendan Donovan and Paul Goldschmidt, the top two hitters in the lineup.
On the mound: Montgomery had to come out of the game after 4 1/3 innings. He had allowed only one run on three hits, one of them a home run, while striking out five and walking one … JoJo Romero got out of that inning, stranding an inherited runner, but retired only one of four hitters he faced in the sixth before Andre Pallante relieved and hit a batter and allowed a double and single as the White Sox scored five runs in the inning … Kyle Leahy made his major-league debut in the seventh and after striking out the first batter he faced, gave up a home run to Luis Robert that tied the game at 7 … Chris Stratton relieved with two outs and the bases loaded and walked in another run on four pitches before finally getting out of the inning.
Key stat: The Cardinals are now 4-4 this season when they score exactly seven runs. In the three previous seasons, from 2020 through 2022, they were a combined 25-3 when they scored seven runs.
Worth noting: St. Louis native Jake Berger played his first game against his hometown team and reached base in all four plate appearances, driving in three runs with a homer and double and also walking twice … The Cardinals placed Tommy Edman on the 10-day injured list because of his wrist injury and recalled Jose Fermin from Memphis, who made his major-league debut as a pinch-runner in the ninth inning … The loss left the Cardinals 8-19 in one-run games this season. They lost 17 one-run games in all of 2022.
Looking ahead: Miles Mikolas will get the start in the second game of the series, set for a 1:10 p.m. first pitch on Saturday.
Follow Rob Rains on Twitter @RobRains.
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