Los Angeles

Wacha is Wonderful as Cardinals Crush Dodgers 7-1

Michael Wacha dominated the Dodgers over seven innings on Thursday and the St. Louis Cardinals crushed Los Angeles 7-1 for their third victory in four games against the Boys in Blue.

New day, same St. Louis Cardinals. Less than a week after taking two of three from Los Angeles at Busch Stadium, the Redbirds beat up on the Dodgers 7-1 on Thursday at Chavez Ravine.

The game featured a rematch of last Saturday's pitching matchup between youngsters Michael Wacha and Carlos Frias. Wacha had a no-hitter through five innings in that game before surrendering a three-run homer to Yasmani Grandal.

"I just missed pitches tonight," Grandal said. "Last week I didn't miss my pitch, but this week I missed a curveball, I missed a slider, and when you miss against a guy who's good like this, you can't get anything going."

Wacha (8-1) was wonderful again for the Cardinals on Thursday as the 23-year-old right-hander allowed just one run on seven hits in seven effective innings and earned his league-high 8th win of the season (tied with Gerrit Cole, Bartolo Colon, and Felix Hernandez).

Infielders Kolten Wong and Jhonny Peralta combined for five hits and drove in three runs.

"Wacha did an amazing job tonight," Wong said. "We're playing good baseball right now and things are going are way. We're excited to be getting these wins."

The Cardinals won their third game in a row and are a season-high 16 games over .500. The two division winners went in opposite directions in the standings after the game as St. Louis increased their lead to 6.5 games over the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Dodgers lead shrank to just 1.5 over the idle San Francisco Giants.

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Wacha made his first ever appearance at Dodger Stadium and fourth overall against LA after he defeated them twice in the 2013 NLCS. Wacha remained undefeated on the road this season, improving to 6-0 with a 1.58 ERA away from home.

"I really like our grey road jerseys," Wacha joked. "It really doesn't matter to me though, a mound is a mound."

Frias (4-3) was formidable on the evening, but did not appear to have the dominant command that he had in St. Louis on Saturday. The Dominican righty allowed five runs on 10 hits in 6.2 innings in the rematch.

"Carlos kept us in the game," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said of Frias. "But at the end of the day, you either win or you lose, we have no excuses."

St. Louis rallied in the third after a two-out error by Justin Turner allowed Matt Carpenter to reach base. Matt Holliday followed with a single and Peralta and Mark Reynolds knocked in the first two runs of the game.

Holliday went 2-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI in the game and has reached base safely in 47 of 48 games this season.

The Dodgers only run of the night came off a sacrifice fly by Alex Guerrero in the 6th inning that scored Adrian Gonzalez. Los Angeles would leave the bases load that inning and strand seven runners throughout the game.

Rookie Joc Pederson's run of five consecutive games with a homer was snapped, but not without some dramatic moments. Pederson flew out to deep right field in his first at-bat, and hit a double off the wall in his second at-bat that just missed clearing the fence by a few inches.


"I hit it pretty good, but I guess not good enough," Pederson said. "It's part of baseball. I just have to keep grinding and stick to my game plan."

They wont make excuses, but the Dodgers have had a whirlwind week after seven consecutive games on the road and multiple rain delays have pushed their energy levels to the brink. After leaving Colorado at 1:00 AM last night, they arrived in Los Angeles at 4:00AM only to be back at the ballpark a few hours later.

"We got home at 4:00AM and had to get up at 7:00AM," Grandal said. "There's no way you're going to feel good the next day doing that. There has to be a rule on getaway day."

The Dodgers have now lost six of their last eight games overall to St. Louis dating back to the NLDS last fall. The Cardinals have eliminated the Dodgers from postseason play each of the past two seasons.

Game Notes:
It was Kenley Jansen bobblehad night at Dodger Stadium. Less than 24 hours after Jansen's mystery unavailability in Colorado, fans in attendance shared their concerns and prayers with their favorite closer through social media.

Adrian Gonzalez hit his MLB-leading 21st double of the season in the sixth inning.

Yasiel Puig made his first rehab start in Class-A Rancho Cucamonga on Thursday. Puig went 2-for-4 with a double and a run scored in his first action since May 8th.


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