Michael Wacha’s no-hit bid through seven innings powered the St. Louis Cardinals past the Pittsburgh Pirates to tie the NLDS at two games a piece. The Cardinals will now have home-field advantage in a deciding game five. Pitching dominated game four, in stark contrast to the first three games of the series in which both teams combined for 26 runs.
Pittsburgh starting pitcher Charlie Morton went five and one-thirds innings allowing two runs on three hits. The scoreless deadlock was broken in the sixth inning when Matt Holliday sent a two-run homer over the center field wall, scoring Carlos Beltran.
The lead story in game four was Michael Wacha‘s no-hit bid which lasted through seven and one-third innings. Wacha gave up only one run on one hit, walked two batters and struck out nine.
The Pirates broke up Michael Wacha’s no-hit bid in the eighth inning with a Pedro Alvarez home run to deep right-center field but the Pirates were unable to break through against relievers Carlos Martinez who pitched the last two-thirds of the eighth inning, and Trevor Rosenthal who gave the Cardinals a scoreless ninth frame to seal the victory.
For the Cardinals, a game five win would put them in their fourth NLCS appearance in seven years. The stakes are obviously much higher for the Pirates as they haven’t appeared in the NLCS since ’92 under the tenure of manager Jim Leyland.
The winner of the series will face either the Los Angeles Dodgers or the Atlanta Braves. The Dodgers have a two-games-to-one lead over the Braves entering their game four match up in Los Angeles later this evening.
NLDS Game 5 – Pittsburgh @ St. Louis – Wednesday, October 9th – 5:00 PM EST – TBS
