3 things to watch for in Cardinals-Phillies National League Wild Card Game 2
By Kevin Henry
3 things to watch in Cardinals-Phillies Game 2: Can St. Louis hitters figure out the Phillies?
St. Louis managed just five hits against the Phillies on Friday afternoon, and only one of those came from the “big three” in the center of the Cardinals order.
Nolan Arenado managed a ninth-inning single, but that was the only hit of the day between him, Albert Pujols, and Paul Goldschmidt, who went for a combined 1-for-11. Pujols also snuffed out a Cardinals scoring opportunity in the sixth, grounding into a double play after St. Louis had Tommy Edman (single) and Lars Nootbaar (walk) reach base to open the inning. After the double play, Goldschmidt grounded out to third to end the frame, symbolic of the frustrating day at the plate for St. Louis.
Still, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol liked the contact his team was making, despite the lack of productivity.
“Two guys on and Albert as hot as he’s been, yeah, you’re feeling good about that. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t,” Marmol said. “I felt pretty darn good about our offense. You look at the first nine hitters [of the game]. You had about four or five balls in play over 95 [mph exit velocity]. I thought we took good swings off Wheeler. He did a nice job, competed well, made pitches, but for as hard as we hit balls for him to throw up zeros was impressive. We had a good approach.”
Can that approach result in more productivity on Saturday night?