By MATT PIKE
JJ Wetherholt homered twice, Cleveland Guardians second baseman Juan Brito allowed Masyn Winn’s potential game-ending grounder to bounce into right field and St. Louis stopped a three-game losing streak rallying to beat the Guardians 6-5 in 10 innings at Busch Stadium.
José Ramírez hit a first-inning homer off Cardinals starter Michael McGreevy to open the scoring, and with 288 moved past Bernie Williams and Bobby Bonilla into sole possession of 11th place among switch-hitters. St. Louis tied the game in the bottom of the first though with a home run of their own off the bat of Iván Herrera.
The Guardians took the lead back in the second inning with another home run, this time from Daniel Schneemann. Wetherholt had his first multi-homer game, going deep for the first time since homering in his debut on opening day. His solo homer off Guardians starter Joey Cantillo tied the score 2-2 in the third inning.
No runs scored again until the eighth inning, when Cleveland opened a 5-2 lead on George Valera's tiebreaking double, which drove in Ramirez, and Angel Martínez's two-run double, scoring Kyle Manzardo and Brito, who pinch ran for Valera. Wetherholt's two-run drive against Erik Sabrowski though, in the bottom half of the inning, cut the Cardinals' deficit to 5-4 at the end of eight innings.
With two outs in the ninth, Winn reached when his two-hopper hit off Brito's left wrist for just the sixth error by Cleveland this season. Winn advanced on Cade Smith’s wild pitch and scored the tying run on Yohel Pozo’s opposite-field double that bounced to the right-center field wall forcing the game into extra innings.
After Riley O’Brien pitched a perfect 10th, stranding automatic runner Chase DeLauter at third when Brito grounded out, Cardinals automatic runner Thomas Saggese advanced to third in the bottom half on a wild pitch by Tim Herrin and scored with a headfirst slide, just beating the throw from Martínez in right field on Nathan Church’s sacrifice fly.
O'Brien earned the win in relief, improving to 2-0 on the season, pitching one inning and striking out one. At the plate, Wetherholt led the way going 2-for-4 with two home runs and three RBI's. Herrera was 1-for-3 with a home run, an RBI, and a walk. St. Louis improved to 4-0 in extra innings with its seventh comeback win.
St. Louis and Cleveland wrap up their series on Wednesday, before an off day on Thursday for the Cardinals. Dustin May (1-2, 9.45 ERA, 11K's) takes the mound for St. Louis against Slade Cecconi (0-2, 5.74 ERA, 14K's) for the Guardians. First pitch is at 12:15pm, pregame will air near the start at 12:05 on KY 102 (102.5FM).
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