Goldy’s still got it: Day after on-base streak ends, Goldschmidt carries Cards’ comeback

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV) – Paul Goldschmidt isn’t one to pay much attention to personal accolades, so when his 46-game on-base streak came to an end in Sunday’s loss to the Reds, the Cardinals’ first baseman almost certainly didn’t even realize it. Those things just aren’t on his radar.

“I don’t care about either of them,” he said flatly in late May when asked about the respective hitting and on-base streaks he had been building at the time.

If there was any doubt as to whether Goldy might carry over some perceived disappointment over the end of his streak to the next day’s game (and there wasn’t, but let’s play along), the 34-year-old slugger started Monday’s game against the Pirates with a different kind of streak, reaching base the first four times he stepped to the plate in a come-from-behind triumph for the Cardinals. A lead-off home run for Goldschmidt in the seventh completed the climb for St. Louis as the Cardinals scored seven unanswered runs to topple the Pirates, 7-5.

Goldschmidt walked and singled in his first two plate appearances before spearheading a critical sixth-inning rally that took the Cardinals from down and out to tied in a flash. The Pirates were ahead 5-0 when Goldschmidt led off the bottom of the sixth by scorching a double.

Nolan Arenado lined into some tough luck before Tyler O’Neill, Brendan Donovan and Juan Yepez kept the line moving to, all of the sudden, make it 5-2 and bring Dylan Carlson to the plate representing the tying run. It was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it development for a game in which the Cardinals were 0-for their first seven at-bats with runners in scoring position before O’Neill’s knock plated Goldschmidt.

There was no missing what Carlson did against lefty reliever Anthony Banda, stroking a three-run homer the opposite way to give the Cardinals new life in a tie game.

“He took some really good swings tonight,” Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol said of Carlson. “That homer was big… He was swinging it well right before he got hurt and seeing what he did tonight is definitely a plus.”

Pirates manager Derek Shelton ultimately needed three pitchers to traverse the treacherous sixth inning as the Cardinals sent nine men to the plate and collected six hits and five runs to irrevocably alter the tone of the game.

For the Cardinals, there was confidence that their fortunes with runners in scoring position would eventually be forced to reckon with the quality at-bats the team felt it had been taking even before the results arrived in droves in the sixth inning.

“I think that’s the most important thing–is trying to have good at-bats,” Goldschmidt said. “If guys are getting on base, you’re eventually going to drive someone in unless you’re getting out of your approach. And I haven’t really seen that. So it was just an overall good job of not trying to get them all back with one big swing. I’m glad it worked out.”

The Cardinals scored in each of their final three offensive innings of the game to take rookie pitcher Zack Thompson off the hook. Things may have looked bleak when the 24-year-old left-hander departed his first-career MLB start trailing 5-0 after the fifth inning, but the offense came alive and the bullpen slammed the door with four scoreless innings to start the mid-week series off on the right note for the Cardinals.

Copyright 2022 KMOV. All rights reserved.