During a season to forget for the Philadelphia Phillies, their Wednesday loss to the St. Louis Cardinals was another they certainly won't want to remember.
The St. Louis Cardinals don't look the same as they have in seasons past and need to win series going forward with the National League Central up for grabs.
St. Louis won both of the first two games in Philadelphia in extra innings, including 7-6 on Wednesday when the Cardinals overcame a five-run deficit.
The San Francisco Giants claimed a 6-3 win over the Atlanta Braves, the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Milwaukee Brewers 7-3 and the Chicago Cubs shut out the San Diego Padres 4-0. "He just wanted to score so badly, he put his head down and ran, which is a mistake". Herrera, however, ran directly through a stop sign from third base coach Juan Samuel and was easily thrown out at the plate by Pham.
Hector Neris blew a ninth-inning lead and Edubray Ramos' balk and error on a pick-off attempt in the 10th allowed the Cardinals a go-ahead run.
Scherzer has struck out at least 10 batters in each of his last five starts. The 24-year-old rookie has a 4.46 ERA and 1.49 WHIP with 46 strikeouts in 42 1/3 innings spread across eight starts. "It's a tough way to lose a game after we had good pitching for 10 innings".
The defeat was the fourth in row and 12th in 13 games for the Phillies who have baseball's worst record at 22-47.
White Sox recall Adam Engel from Class AAA Charlotte
He was 3-7 with an 8.02 ERA in 14 starts for Minnesota as he was unable to carry over the success he had in the minor leagues. Jose Abreu went 4 for 5 with a home run and two doubles for the White Sox , and Avisail Garcia had a homer and two RBIs.
UP NEXT - Cardinals: RHP Michael Wacha (3-3, 4.78) had six quality starts in his first seven outings, but has had only one in his last five starts - it came against the Phillies. Nola was in line for the win until Arizona outfielder Gregor Blanco took him deep for a two-run homer in the seventh inning. Seung Hwan Oh allowed a run but finished for his 16th save in 18 tries. St. Louis is 4-5 in extra-inning games this season; Philadelphia is 4-7.
The Los Angeles Dodgers cruised to a 12-0 win against the New York Mets, the Houston Astros were too good for the Oakland Athletics 8-4 and the Seattle Mariners had a 5-4 walk-off win over the Detroit Tigers after 10 innings.
After Garcia booted a double-play grounder, Maikel Franco drove in the first run with a fielder's choice grounder and Herrera ripped a two-run double to right-center. The Phillies stretched that advantage to 5-0 before Pivetta allowed two homers prior to exiting.
Pham hit his eighth homer in the fifth. His only blemish was a solo home run for Jedd Gyorko in the second inning. Martinez made it a one-run game in the eighth, smacking his first career pinch-hit homer on the first pitch of the night from reliever Joaquin Benoit.
"(Fien) threw me a cutter first pitch and I said if he throws me another one I'm going to crush it", Pham said.
"We talk about how unsafe a hitter he is at any point to any part of the field, too", Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said of Pham.
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