CINCINNATI (KMOX) - A day after much of St. Louis Cardinals nation was up in arms over the team's lack of movement at the trade deadline, the Cardinals had an offensive game for the history books.
In Tuesday night's 16-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis had 23 hits to set a new record for most hits by a team in a single game at Great American Ball Park. Not even the Reds themselves had ever done it in the park's 17-year history.
Starting with a six-run first inning – that lasted 27 minutes – St. Louis also posted season highs for runs and the number of players to reach base in a game. The 23 hits were the most Cardinals hits since Aug. 22, 2008, when they had 28 against Atlanta.
The offensive outburst was led by newcomer Brad Miller, who entered the game already leading the team in RBI. The cleanup hitter was 4 for 6 with a new career-high seven RBI in his second two-home run game of the season.
- The Cards have scored four or more runs in an inning six times at GABP since the start of ‘19, with a high of 10 runs in the sixth inning on July 19, 2019, according to MLB.com.
- The Cardinals had 13 different position players reach base safely; 12 had a hit.
- Backup catcher Andrew Knizner entered the game in the sixth and still had time to get two singles and an RBI.
- Kolten Wong went 4 for 4, reaching base five times, and scored four runs.
The leadoff hitter says this is something that's been a long time coming:
"I’ve been telling the guys that we haven’t been getting grace," Wong says. "We literally came out of quarantine and started playing baseball right away, we didn’t have a chance to kind of get our feet under us. They threw us to the fire and see what happens. It took a lot of guys some time to get going. One of those things where guys are getting their timing down and understand that we have a big stretch ahead of us."
Despite his big day, Brad Miller was more impressed with the team-wide approach at the plate.
"We jumped on a really good pitcher and had nine good at-bats in a row,” Miller says. "We set the tone early. That was awesome. I think the biggest thing it takes is a bunch of quality at-bats in a row. I thought that was the best string of at-bats maybe we had all year, especially with Sonny. Everybody was able to pick out a good pitch and lay off the stuff he wanted us to chase."
And starting pitcher Kwang Hyun Kim didn't look bad either. He pitched five innings of three-hit ball, extending his scoreless streak against the Reds to 11 innings over two starts and now as a 2-0 record this season. No Reds baserunner got past second base against him.