ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Taylor Walls hit a three-run homer with two outs in the 10th inning and the Tampa Bay Rays beat the St. Louis Cardinals 4-2 on Tuesday night.
Walls sent a 2-2 pitch from Drew VerHagen (3-1) into the right field seats. He has four hits in his last 26 at-bats.
“You feel good for Wallsie,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “Any of these guys that have been scuffling here a little bit to come up with a big hit like that and ultimately win us a ballgame has got to be a great feeling for him. I know our clubhouse is pretty pumped up right now.”
St. Louis loaded the bases with no outs in the 10th against Colin Poche (2-0) but scored just once for a 2-1 lead on Lars Nootbaar’s sacrifice fly. Paul Goldschmidt was thrown out by center fielder Kevin Kiermaier attempting to score on Harrison Bader’s two-out single.
The Cardinals were coming off a pair of extra-inning wins over the Chicago Cubs.
“You’re going to have games like that,” St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol said. ”Guys battled. Actually a really well-played game.”
Both starting pitchers had strong outings.
St. Louis’ Dakota Hudson gave up one run, two hits and one walk while striking out six over seven innings. Tampa Bay’s Jeffrey Springs allowed six hits in six scoreless innings.
Hudson permitted Ji-Man Choi’s one-out double in the first and then held Tampa Bay hitless until Manuel Margot opened the seventh with a two-base hit. Margot went to third on Kiermaier’s grounder and scored the game’s first run on Isaac Paredes’ sacrifice fly.
St. Louis tied it in the eighth. Nootbaar, pinch-hitting for Albert Pujols, drew a two-out walk from Andrew Kittredge and advanced to second on Tyler O’Neill’s single before scoring on Bader’s base hit.
Pujols singled in the fourth for his 3,320th hit, passing Paul…
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