Photo: The Arizona Republic
PHOENIX, Ariz. – Different night, similar result.
The St. Louis Cardinals jumped out to an early lead, thanks to two home runs from Carlos Beltran, and held on to beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 6-1 on Tuesday night. In the past two games the Cardinals have outscored the Diamondbacks 11-0 in the first three innings.
Ian Kennedy (3-2) struggled in the first two innings, giving up a two-run shot to Beltran in the first and allowing a grand slam that put the game out of reach in the second.
“I was just making bad pitches early on and putting myself in bad counts,” Kennedy said. “It just really sucks when you put your team down in a really big hole. It’s hard to come out of it”
Kennedy did manage to pitch into the seventh inning, allowing the DBacks bullpen to rest up, but that was largely because Jake Westbrook (4-2) baffled the Diamondback hitters all night long.
“It’s plain and simple, St. Louis is playing much better than us,” Kirk Gibson said. “They beat us in every aspect of the game.”
Westbrook stuck out eight and allowed only six batters to reach base over seven innings of work. Arizona was able to avoid the shutout thanks to an RBI double from Miguel Montero in the 9th inning, which was the Diamondbacks only extra base hit of the game.
“We’re in a tough stretch; we lost four in a row, so everything changes?” Gibson asked after the game. “We went through this last year. We will come out of this together, one guy isn’t going to carry the torch. We have to execute better. We are capable of doing that.”
Arizona falls to three games below .500 and has lost six of their last eight games since seemingly turning the season around in Miami.
“We can get on a roll and it could change quickly,” said Gibson. “We just got to win and get our confidence back. One game turn into two, two turns into three. We just got to get it stop.”
The Diamondbacks will try to avoid being swept for the first time this season on Wednesday afternoon. National League Rookie of the Month Wade Miley (3-0) will get the start against Kyle Loshe (4-1). First pitch from Chase Field is at 12:40 PM.
Add comment