KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It took until the seventh inning on Saturday night, but the Cardinals finally saw the same Bobby Witt Jr. who has been terrorizing opposing pitchers all season.
The Cardinals had held the Kansas City shortstop without a hit through his first eight plate appearances in the two-game series, walking him twice, but couldn’t continue that luck.
Witt Jr. tripled to drive in a run and later scored on a home run by Salvador Perez in a four-run seventh that broke a 2-2 tie and carried the Royals to the win in Kansas City.
Witt helped the Royals pad their lead with two insurance runs in the eighth with an RBI single.
The Cardinals’ attempt to protect a 2-1 lead from the third inning on proved to be too difficult a task as the Royals tied the game in the sixth before their big seventh inning.
The loss, combined with Milwaukee’s 1-0 win over the Reds, dropped the Cardinals eight games behind the Brewers in the NL Central. It’s their biggest deficit in the division race since they also were eight games back on May 15.
Here is how Saturday night’s game broke down:
At the plate: Paul Goldschmidt staked the Cardinals to a quick 2-0 lead with a second-inning home run off former Cardinal Michael Wacha, his 18th homer of the season … Those were the only runs the Cardinals would get off Wacha, who allowed just three more hits in pitching through the seventh inning … Brendan Donovan led off the eighth with a double and later scored their third run … Donovan was hitting leadoff as a cold kept Masyn Winn out of the lineup … Nolan Gorman had three of the team’s total of 10 hits.
On the mound: Andre Pallante pitched into the sixth inning, allowing a run in the third inning and then being charged with a second run when Ryan Fernandez allowed an inherited runner to score in the sixth … Fernandez also started the seventh and only retired one of the five batters he faced … Fernandez was charged with three runs, John King with one, the home run by Perez, and Shawn Armstrong gave up the two runs in the eighth.
Key stat: The Cardinals have lost the last five games started by Pallante, whose last win came on June 28. Since the All-Star break, the Cardinals are 10-12 and the only starter with more than one win is Sonny Gray with two.
Worth noting: Brandon Crawford struck out in three of his four at-bats … The Royals were successful on three of their four stolen base attempts, and Witt Jr. also was picked off first base … in Memphis on Saturday night, Jordan Walker hit a three-run homer and also tripled while Luken Baker hit his league-leading 31st home run and also delivered a sacrifice fly.
Looking ahead: Since it was only a two-game series in Kansas City, the Cardinals will have a rare scheduled day off on Sunday before opening a three-game series on Monday night in Cincinnati. Gray is the scheduled starter in the opener.