Cardinals win 7-4 in Padres’ return to playoffs
SAN DIEGO — Given a chance to catch their breath after a crazy month and a half, the St. Louis Cardinals settled into the playoffs with yet another win against the San Diego Padres.
Paul Goldschmidt hit a tworun home run during a four-run first inning, St. Louis’ bullpen held strong after starter Kwang Hyun Kim stumbled in his playoff debut and the Cardinals ruined the Padres’ long-awaited return to the playoffs with a 7-4 victory Wednesday in the opener of their NL wild-card series.
The Cardinals got a welcome two days off before this series began. They came after a season-closing grind that saw them play 53 games in 44 days, including 11 doubleheaders, with only two days off. The team had its season suspended for 14 games from late July to mid-August after 10 players and eight staff members tested positive for COVID-19 and had to scramble to fit in the makeups.
“It was nice. We needed them,” Goldschmidt said. “The whole last whatever, 45 days, we were playing every day, guys were playing as hard as they could but can’t operate at 100 percent for that long. It was nice to kind of recharge and be 100 percent or close to it and just be ready to go.”
The Cardinals need one more win to eliminate the Padres from the postseason for the fourth time since 1996. They swept the Padres in the NL Division Series in 1996 and 2005, and won 3-1 in 2006, which was the last time San Diego made the postseason. Game 2 is today.
Right-hander Chris Paddack (0-1) failed to give the Padres the boost they desperately needed after Mike Clevinger and Dinelson Lamet were left off the wild-card roster due to injuries suffered in their final regular-season starts.
Paddack lasted only 2 1/3 innings and gave up six runs.
After retiring leadoff batter Kolten Wong, a former University of Hawaii standout, Paddack allowed the next five batters to reach. San Diego native Tommy Edman singled and Goldschmidt homered to left. Dylan Carlson doubled, 38-year-old Yadier Molina hit an RBI single and Paul DeJong doubled before Matt Carpenter hit a sacrifice fly.
“We didn’t come out and say we needed to be aggressive, I just think guys were ready to hit,” Goldschmidt said. “He threw what, 10 strikes to start the game, so it wasn’t like we were swinging at stuff out of the zone. It just happened that we got hits.”
Paddack allowed three straight hits to open the third, including DeJong’s RBI single, before being replaced by Matt Strahm. Carpenter added an RBI single for a 6-2 lead.