Wong HR pulls Cards even with Giants
ST. LOUIS — Kolten Wong hit a leadoff home run in the bottom of the ninth inning, and the resilient St. Louis Cardinals edged the San Francisco Giants 5- 4 on Sunday to even the National League Championship Series at a game apiece.
The Cardinals won after losing All- Star catcher Yadier Molina to a strained oblique muscle. He bent over in pain and didn’t make it out of the batter’s box on a double- play ball in the sixth. Molina was having further tests, and manager Mike Matheny said it ‘‘ didn’t look good.’’
‘‘ We’ll wait and see, and right now we’ll just go ahead and keep celebrating a very tough, hard- fought win,’’ Matheny said. ‘‘ I am real proud at how these guys kept coming.’’
The series resumes Tuesday with Game 3 in San Francisco. The Cardinals will send right- hander John Lackey against Giants righthander Tim Hudson.
‘‘ We just knew we had to keep grinding,’’ Wong said. ‘‘ When you lose someone like Yadi, it’s definitely tough for us. But we told ourselves we’ve been going through this all year. Grinding up and down, not getting any easy pass, so we’re all so confident.’’
In a back- and- forth game, the Cardinals also got homers from pinch hitter Oscar Taveras in the seventh and Matt Adams in the eighth to take a 4- 3 lead. It was a rare postseason failure for the normally reliable Giants bullpen, which allowed a homer in each of the last three innings.
‘‘[ Our relievers] are the reason we’re in this situation, and you give [ the Cardinals] credit,’’ Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. ‘‘ They threw out some good at- bats, we made a couple of mistakes and they took advantage of them.’’
The Giants tied the score when pinch runner Matt Duffy dashed home from second on a two- out wild pitch by Cardinals closer Trevor Rosenthal in the ninth, but they wound up losing for only the second time in their last 14 postseason games.
Wong hit an 0- 1 pitch from Sergio Romo for his second big homer this postseason. His seventh- inning drive was the decisive blow in Game 3 of the NL Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Cardinals, who ranked last in the NL with 105 homers during the regular season, have hit 11 homers in six playoff games — seven in the seventh inning or later. In the third, Matt Carpenter homered for the fourth time this postseason.
Cardinals reliever Seth Maness retired Pablo Sandoval on a comebacker with the bases loaded to end the top of the ninth and earned the victory. Maness came on after Rosenthal couldn’t hold a one- run lead. With runners at first and second and two outs, Rosenthal’s 3- 2 pitch bounced several feet in front of the plate and deflected off the glove off backup catcher Tony Cruz. Duffy never broke stride and slid home with the tying run.