SAN DIEGO — Wednesday’s Game Report: Padres 1, Cardinals 0
Locked in a long scoring drought, the Cardinals went into the seventh inning Wednesday night trying to accomplish something other than scoring a run.
They were just trying to get a hit.
It took until two outs in the seventh inning before a single by Albert Pujols broke up the no-hit bid by Blake Snell. They got another hit from the nest batter, Juan Yepez, but didn’t score a run in getting shut out for the third consecutive game.
That ties the longest shutout streak in franchise history, the sixth time it has happened, the third time since 1976. The last time the Cardinals failed to score in three consecutive games was the final three games in 2015.
In addition to being held scoreless for 27 consecutive innings, the Cardinals have scored just one run in their last 43 innings, and that came in the 11th inning on Saturday night when they started the inning with a runner on second base.
The Cardinals’ magic number to clinch the NL Central remained at six. They have 12 games left in the regular season.
Here is how the game broke down:
At the plate: The Cardinals had only two baserunners in the first six innings against Snell, a leadoff walk to Nolan Arenado in the second and a one-out walk to Paul Goldschmidt in the fourth. Snell struck out 13 and allowed only three balls hit into the outfield among the Cardinals’ first 20 outs … The last time the Cardinals struck out 13 times against a lefthander was against Clayton Kershaw on June 29, 2014 … Yepez’s single gave the Cardinals their only scoring chance of the night but Paul DeJong struck out for the third time to end the inning … Pujols struck out and popped to second in his other two at-bats as he remained at 698 career homers.
On the mound: The Padres scored the only run of the game in the second inning off Miles Mikolas. The run was unearned because of an error by Tommy Edman … Mikolas allowed only one hit over his final four innings of work … Jake Woodford and JoJo Romero combined to keep it a 1-0 game over the final two innings.
Key stat: In their last four games, covering 38 innings, the Cardinals have 14 hits in 121 at-bats, a collective .116 average. Only one of the hits was an extra-base hit, a double by Goldschmidt on Tuesday night.
Worth noting: This was the 16th time the Cardinals have been shut out this season, the most in the National League, and their highest total in a season since they were shut out 19 times in 1995 … Dakota Hudson was activated from the taxi squad before the game and Packy Naughton was optioned to Memphis, although he will remain with the team in California in case a pitcher gets injured. Hudson is expected to be used in the role that Jordan Hicks had been filling in the bullpen until he was injured.
Looking ahead: Jack Flaherty will get the start in the 3:10 (central time) game on Thursday that wraps up the series.
