By Zachary McMahon –
The Boston Red Sox played the series finale against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on Sunday afternoon. The Red Sox were going into this game looking to avoid being at the other end of a second sweep in a three-game series this season, as the Cardinals won the first two games of the series.
The Sox had Tyler O’Neil at designated hitter for the second straight game as Ceddane Rafaela played in center field for the second straight game. However, David Hamliton did not start at shortstop like he did in the last two games. In this game, it was Romy Gonzalez who started at shortstop after a pinch hit appearance on Saturday. Rob Refsnyder played out in right field while Jarren Duran started at left field.
Nick Pivetta started on the mound for the Sox in this game where he pitched six innings and struck out eight batters, and only allowed one run which was a homer by Lars Nootbaar as he has had RBIs in all three games in the series against the Sox.
After Matthew Liberatore struck out the first two batters from the Sox as in Duran and Refsnyder, O’Neil hit his first homer as an opponent at Busch Stadium as it was a solo blast to left center in the first inning.
In the second inning, after Liberatore gave Connor Wong a walk to first base, Garrett Cooper hit a RBI double that scored Wong to make it 2-0.
After allowing an infield single to Cooper and then scoring on the RBI double by Gonzalez, Libratore was taken out of the game for Chris Roycroft in the fourth inning.
Roycroft would throw out Gonzalez at home after a throw to Cardinals rookie catcher Pablo Pages on a fielder’s choice by Rafaela. After that Rafaela stole second and then advanced to third on the throwing error by Pages. Duran scored Rafaela home on an RBI Triple for his seventh of the season, which is just as much as he had in his first three seasons.
In the fifth inning, both Wilyer Abreu and Dominic Smith pinch hit for Cooper and Gonzalez respectively. Abreu came to the plate when it was bases loaded after a pair of walks to Devers and O’Neil by Roycroft and an infield single by Wong. Abreu hit an infield single that scored O’Neil and kept the bases loaded. Smith had a two-run single that scored Devers and Wong. After that, Roycroft was relieved by Ryan Fernandez before there were outs in the inning. Fernandez was able to ground Vaughn Grissom to a double play and a strikeout to Rafaela to end the inning.
Abreu’s pinch hitting put him in right field as Refsnyder moved to left field, Duran to center field, Rafaela moved to shortstop.
After a second walk to O’Neil in the sixth inning by Fernandez, Devers hit a two-run home run that extended his streak to five straight games with a home run, also extending a hit streak to nine games. He already extended his 13-game on-base streak with his walk in the fifth. Devers became the seventh Sox player to hit a home run in five straight games, most recently being Bobby Dalbec in 2020.
However, no Red Sox player has hit a homer in six games in a row, but Devers has a chance to break the record on Monday against the Tampa Bay Rays.
Greg Weissert came in the seventh inning to relieve Pivetta, and he allowed four hits as the Cardinals load the bases.
Brendan Donovan would drive in a run with an RBI single, and then Nolan Arenado would score on a wild pitch by Weissert to make it 9-3 in the seventh inning. He would strike out Pages to end the inning, as Pages would strike out for the third time in the game.
David Hamliton pinch hit for Devers in the ninth, and hit his second home run of his career as it was a solo shot to right field, and Smith had an RBI groundout drove in his third RBI of the game, which is his first game with 3+ RBI since 2022 with the New York Mets to make it 11-3.
In the bottom half of the inning, Hamilton took over at shortstop, where he played for the third straight game, and Rafaela moved over to third base.
Cam Booser and Chris Martin both shut down the Cardinals in the final two innings, as Booser allowed only one hit and struck out two batters. Martin struck out all three batters in 14 pitches to close out the game.
The Sox avoid the sweep in the first series of the six-game road trip. Boston will begin a three-game series against the Rays in Tampa Bay as they try to avenge their series loss against the Rays earlier in the week. Monday’s first pitch will be at 6:50 p.m. as Tanner Houck will be getting the nod against Taj Bradley on NESN/NESN360.