The Padres had plenty of opportunities to score runs, but failed to take advantage of them. The Cardinals only had a few opportunities to score runs, but did not let chance pass them by. That's how St. Louis beat San Diego 2-1 on Saturday at Busch Stadium.
The Padres had a baserunner in every inning except the first and eighth. They had multiple baserunners in three different innings but failed to score in any of them. They had nine hits in the game ... eight singles and the one where they scored their only run of the afternoon, a solo homer by Yangervis Solarte in the 4th that put the Friars on top 1-0.
But other than that the Padres kept getting themselves in to, then out of scoring opportunities. Take the 6th inning, for example.
Yonder Alonso led off with a single. But then Solarte hit a rocket up the middle that glanced off the glove of Cardinals starter Carlos Martinez and ricocheted to 2nd baseman Kolten Wong, who doubled off Alonso at first because Yonder failed to freeze on a line drive. Justin Upton and Derek Norris followed with 2-out singles, but Will Venable struck out to end the inning.
To recap, the Padres got three hits in one inning and managed to score no runs.
The Cardinals, meanwhile, only had four hits in the game, three of them singles ... but they managed to score the game-winning run without even getting one hit. In the 8th inning Thomas Pham hit a routine ground ball to Alexi Amarista at shortstop. Amarista tried to play it off to his side and didn't get the glove down all the way. The error put Pham at first with nobody out.
That's the kind of breakdown in fundamentals you don't see from consistently winning teams. Pham then stole second base, advanced to third on a ground ball to the right side by Matt Carpenter, and scored on a Jhonny Peralta sacrifice fly to give the Cardinals their 2-1 win.
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Missing chances to score runs has been an issue for the Padres for years now, and it continues to hurt them. Either the entire organization, from the top down, needs a shift in its approach at the plate, or they need to find guys who know how to handle at-bats like that. Just look at St. Louis. They seem to have a roster full of them and it's no coincidence the Cardinals own the best record in baseball.
