WASHINGTON (AP) — By the time St. Louis finally allowed a run, Andre Pallante had worked into the eighth inning and the Cardinals were on their way to a seventh straight victory.
Strong pitching was the story again. Pallante took a shutout into the eighth, and although the Cardinals fell a couple innings short of their third consecutive shutout, their overall winning streak rolls on after St. Louis beat the Washington Nationals 4-2 on Saturday.
“Credit to the pitchers. They’re going out there and executing,” said St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol, who also credited the catchers and the game plans. “It’s been really fun to watch.”
The Cardinals allowed a run in the sixth inning against Pittsburgh on Tuesday night, eventually winning that game 2-1. Then came a 5-0 victory over the Pirates and a 10-0 rout of the Nationals that included an individual shutout by Erick Fedde.
Then St. Louis scored four runs in the second Saturday, and Pallante kept the Nationals off the scoreboard until the eighth.
“When your team puts up four runs in the second inning, you can feel them kind of start and deflate with their at-bats,” Pallante said. “The offense did a great job of taking them out of it.”
This was the second-longest outing of Pallante’s career. He threw eight scoreless innings — also at Washington — in a 2022 game.
“It was good for him to touch that eighth. He’ll build off of that,” Marmol said. “From a confidence standpoint, really good.”
Pallante was pulled after allowing a two-run homer to Dylan Crews with one out in the eighth. Then the Nationals put two on against reliever JoJo Romero that inning but didn’t score again.
Ryan Helsley gave up a hit and two walks with two out in the ninth, but Marmol wasn’t overly concerned about his closer.
“If you look at the shape of the fastball, the velo and actual ride on it, is what we would like it to be compared to other outings,” Marmol said. “Obviously, it wasn’t as clean has he would have liked or we would have liked, but there are some positives in that outing.”
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