With 1 out, Yoenis Cespedes drew a walk. James Loney followed by dunking a hit in a particular spot where no Outfielder could possibly have caught it, which might be the story of his season to this point. Cespedes, seeing this, turned on his jets and headed for 3rd. The throw, whose originator escapes me, to Adam Wainwright at 3rd appeared to be in plenty of time to get Cespedes. Except that all of a sudden Wainwright lost his glove under Cespedes' cleat, and following a review, Cespedes was called safe. I've seen Pitchers have to chuck their entire glove to 1st Base on a comebacker, but this one's a new one on me.
Point is, when you get a break such as this, good things tend to happen.
One out later, Greg Garcia yakked on a Wilmer Flores ground ball that probably would have ended the inning outright, and Cespedes scored. One batter later, Alejandro De Aza, who one inning earlier drove in 2 runs with a single, slammed a Wainwright offering into the Cardinals bullpen for a 3-run Home Run that essentially put the game out of reach at 7-0, put Wainwright in the showers, and put a well-deserved puss on the faces of Cardinals fans.
For De Aza, it was his 2nd 3-run Home Run in a week, after a season in which I'd claimed he would be the first player to be DFA'd this season and he spent the first 3 months not playing well or not playing at all. But he's stuck with it and for all the pieces falling around him, he's been here all year and has come up with more key hits than one might realize. To say nothing of the 5 RBI he had tonight.
As far as falling pieces, well, the Mets had another fallen piece in the 6th, as Seth Lugo, who'd been pitching rather brilliantly over the first 5 innings, came down with a cramp and had to leave the game. This was, of course, the second time in two days this happened to the Mets in St. Louis, so you don't have to be a genius to figure out who's at fault here. I'm not sure why Ol' Cortisone Shot Ramirez can't figure this one out, because all you need to do is fucking hydrate before a game on a miserable humid day in St. Louis and maybe you can avoid cramping up, but this sort of logic seems to be beyond that gentleman's realm. But he still has a job, so what the hell do I know?
Regardless of the turd in that particular punchbowl, it didn't sink the Mets, who in spite of some spotty relief work from Jim Henderson, Josh Smoker and the mysteriously returned Sean Gilmartin did not allow the Cardinals a realistic chance of getting back in the game. Instead, the Mets offense tacked on a few more runs of their own (!) and won 10-6. So not only did they win this series in St. Louis altogether, but they managed to get themselves back to .500 on this road trip, and they're still hanging around in this Wildcard chase.
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