O'Neill plates decisive run in 9th as Cards split twin bill

May 18th, 2022

NEW YORK -- Everything was mostly peaceful between the Cardinals and Mets in their doubleheader Tuesday at Citi Field. There wasn’t any shoving or arguing like April 27 at Busch Stadium, but there was some ninth-inning chaos.

The two teams met for the first time since that day and split the twin bill. The Mets won the first game, 3-1, while the Cardinals won the nightcap, 4-3.

In fact, Mets first baseman Pete Alonso and Cardinals first-base coach Stubby Clapp let bygones be bygones by giving each other fist pumps across the field before the start of Game 2. It was Clapp who tackled Alonso during the scuffle in April.

“Guys don’t want bad blood. They just want to compete, and that’s it,” said infielder Brendan Donovan. "They have a great club. We have a great club. So to play two competitive games was awesome.”

Game 2 was tied at 3 going into the ninth inning, but the Cardinals took the lead off right-hander Adam Ottavino when Tyler O'Neill reached base on a two-out infield single, driving in Donovan for the go-ahead run.

It was not the swing O’Neill wanted, but the hit won the game. This is a man who was recently given time off to get his swing back in order. As O’Neill put it, he was given a mental break. Before the start of the doubleheader, O’Neill was 13-for-80 (.163) with a home run and 13 RBIs in his last 22 games.

“I was trying to get something over the plate. I got cuffed a little bit, but [the Mets] were playing in the right spot. I came out with a single,” O’Neill said. “I was trying to get the ball in play. … Good things are going to happen when you do that."

The Mets still managed to add their own chaos in the bottom of the ninth. With one out and right-hander Giovanny Gallegos on the mound, Dominic Smith walked and Luis Guillorme singled to put runners on first and second, but Gallegos picked up his seventh save of the season by striking out Mark Canha and Francisco Lindor to end the game.

“That’s huge. I think it’s great for team morale. We had a setback in the eighth and we were able to come back in the ninth and that’s huge for us,” said Donovan.

This game could have been a lot worse for St. Louis, but left-hander Génesis Cabrera made sure the team got out of trouble in the sixth inning. Right-hander Andre Pallante started the inning off by getting Brandon Nimmo to ground out, but Pallante walked the next three hitters to load the bases.

Pallante was taken out of the game in favor of Cabrera. He struck out Eduardo Escobar and then got Jeff McNeil to pop up to end the threat.

“It started in the bullpen,” Cabrera said through an interpreter. “I warmed up the right way. So when I entered the game, I threw strikes and I did the job.”

In the first game, right-hander Miles Mikolas wasn’t his dominant self, but he battled and gave the Cardinals six innings and allowed three runs (two earned). Mikolas had his problems in the early going.

In the second inning, the Mets had the bases loaded and no outs. Travis Jankowski hit into a fielder’s choice, but Smith scored the first run of the game.

The next inning found Mikolas in trouble again as the Mets scored two runs. McNeil had an RBI double before Smith drove him in with his own double.

“[The outing] was not great,” Mikolas said. “I was able to clean up there at the end. The Mets were putting some good swings on the ball early. We made adjustments on our pitch calling. I was able to have a couple of clean innings at the end that kind of kept us in the ballgame a little bit.”

While Mikolas was in the game, the Cardinals’ bats were quiet until the eighth inning, when Paul Goldschmidt hit a solo homer off right-hander Drew Smith.

The Cardinals were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position against the Mets’ bullpen. St. Louis’ biggest chance to put a crooked number on the board came in the third inning against right-hander Trevor Williams. The Cardinals had runners on first and second with one out but Goldschmidt flied out to Jankowski for the second out, while Nolan Arenado struck out to end the threat.

“I did feel there were some opportunities for us. We could have created more opportunities off Williams,” manager Oliver Marmol said.