For the very first time in two years, Jack Flaherty won a fourth straight start. The St.Louis Cardinals beat Washington 8-4 to open the second half by taking two of three from the Nationals.
Despite allowing three runs, three walks, and three hits in six innings with seven strikeouts, Flaherty (7-5) still managed to win his fourth consecutive start. This is the first time he has achieved a four-game winning streak since his 8-0 run from April 7 to May 19, 2021.
"Good things happen when you get ahead,” Flaherty said.
“A lot of things that I’ve been trying to work on and get better throughout the year, I did a much better job of that today from getting ahead and fastball command."
Paul Goldschmidt had hit a two-run homer, and Nolan Gorman had three hits and two RBIs for St. Louis.
Oliver Marmol, Cardinals manager, said "Jack was on the attack from the first inning, and his stuff looked really good. He commanded the fastball extremely well, got a lot of swings and misses on the curveball, misses on the slider and changeup."
Following a 38-minute delay due to rain, Chris Stratton threw a flawless seventh inning. Kyle Leahy took over and secured one out before JoJo Romero finished the game by pitching the final five innings for the Cardinals. Currently, the Cardinals are at the bottom of the NL Central with a record of 40-53.
Goldschmidt said, “We just need to play well every day and put a bunch of wins together. If we do that, we have a chance.”
Nationals All-Star Josiah Gray (6-8) had traffic from the first inning after he gave up four runs and 10 hits in five innings.
Dave Martinez, the Nationals manager, said, “He couldn’t establish his fastball today. He threw a lot of sliders, a lot of cutters. He got out of some jams, you know and gave us all he had for five innings. I thought that was enough until he had 95 pitches.”
Marmol said of Gorman, “He’s taking much better at-bats.”
"Today was another great day for him. He’s staying on the ball. You can tell he’s staying through the zone a lot better, even on the flyouts," he added.
Dominic Smith had a two-run double to shallow center in the sixth, which just evaded Nootbar’s attempt for a diving, backhand catch, cutting the Nationals’ deficit to 4-3.
In the sixth inning, Goldschmidt hit a powerful 443-foot drive to center off Jordan Weems, while Alec Burleson managed to secure an RBI groundout. Gorman contributed to the team's lead with a run-scoring single, resulting in a score of 8-3. In the eighth inning, Abrams doubled and scored on Ruiz's groundout.
"We had a good series there. We were only a couple of pitches away from taking all three. We’ll take this one and build on it, then move on to the next one,” Flaherty said,
Roster Moves And Trainers Room
St. Louis activated Knizner from the ten-day injured list and optioned 1B Luken Baker to Memphis. Returned RHP James Naile to the Triple-A farm team. Naile was the team’s 27th player in Saturday’s doubleheader.
Jeimer Candelario, who plays for the 3B team, was unable to play for the second consecutive game due to a bone bruise in his right thumb which occurred on Friday night. In addition, P Hunter Harvey was sent to D.C. to undergo an MRI. Despite this setback, Harvey was able to secure a save during Saturday's opener.