The St. Louis Cardinals gave up six runs in the second inning of their game against the Philadelphia Phillies Friday evening, and frankly, they're lucky it wasn't even worse.
After a scoreless first inning at Citizens Bank Park, J.T. Realmuto led off the bottom of the second inning by striking out against Cardinals starter Carlos Martinez. That didn't prove to be a precursor for how the inning went - far from it, really.
With one out, Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm hit a ball to shortstop Paul DeJong, who slipped on a damp infield and ultimately elected not to make a throw to first base. The next Phillies batter, Didi Gregorius, hit a ball to second base that Matt Carpenter muffed, bringing up Jean Segura. Segura, a two-time All-Star, flied a ball to center field, which looked like it would bring Bohm home on a sacrifice fly. Instead, center fielder Dylan Carlson lost the ball in the lights, allowing Segura to reach second base and a run to score:
Amazingly, things got even worse for the Cardinals from there.
With runners on second and third base, the Cardinals elected to intentionally walk Phillies rookie Mickey Moniak in his first plate appearance of the 2021 season. But instead of retiring pitcher Zach Eflin, Martinez hit him, which forced a run in.
A struggling Andrew McCutchen followed by singling into right field, which brought home two more runs for the Phillies. Already down 4-0, Martinez walked Rhys Hoskins, setting up a bases-loaded at-bat against Bryce Harper. After Harper narrowly missed hitting a home run in the bottom of the first inning, he doubled into right-center field, bringing home two runs, which finished off the scoring for the inning:
In total, the Cardinals had three defensive miscues, hit two batters (Realmuto was also hit in his second at-bat of the inning) and gave up six runs. Just imagine how much worse the inning would have been if Bohm and Gregorius weren't retired to end the inning and leave the bases loaded.
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