After a slow start to the season, the St. Louis Cardinals turned things around and became buyers at the MLB trade deadline. While they remain in the thick of the National League playoff race, the team is just 4-8 over their last 12 games, including today’s shutout loss to the New York Mets.
Losing pitcher Andre Pallante admits that the game got away from him and realizes how he lost control. “What it boils down to is two-strike pitches. Didn’t really have a great feel for my curveball today. That’s my best putaway pitch and not being able to put that underneath the zone, over the plate to get some swing-and-miss hurt me a lot,” Pallante explained per Bally Sports Midwest on X.
The Mets were able to take advantage of some mistakes Pallante made including a wild pitch that scored a run, a three RBI double by Tyrone Taylor and another run scoring double by former Cardinal Harrison Bader.
“I did a fairly decent job earlier in the game through the first four innings and then I just kinda made four big mistakes back-to-back-to-back-to-back so, yeah, that really cost me,” Pallante said via Bally Sports Midwest.
The Cardinals' Andre Pallante lost control of the game
Pallante ultimately went 4.2 innings for the Cardinals giving up five earned runs on five hits with two walks and two wild pitches. The Mets got their first run in the second inning when Pallante bounced a pitch to Francisco Alvarez out in front of home plate. The wild pitch allowed Pete Alonso to score from third.
Pallante pitched well until the fifth inning when he allowed an RBI double to left by Bader – who received an ovation during his first at bat from Cardinals’ fans in his return to St. Louis – and then a bases-clearing three-run double down the right field line to Taylor. That made it a 5-0 Cardinals' lead.
“Just going out there trying to execute pitches as good as I can … but those two strike pitches in that fifth inning were all really bad. That’s what cost me,” Pallante acknowledged.
New York made it 6-0 in the sixth inning when Jeff McNeil hit his 10th home run of the season off of Shawn Armstrong, who the Cardinals added in a trade deadline deal with the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for Dylan Carlson.
With today’s loss St. Louis is now six games behind the first-place Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central. The Cardinals are three games back in the Wild Card standings and 2.5 games behind the Mets, who improved to 59-53 with the win. St. Louis dropped to 57-56 overall and 29-26 at home.
Pallante is in his third season with the Cardinals and entered today’s game with a 4.04 ERA, 1.364 WHIP and an ERA+ of 104. With the loss, his record dropped to 4-6 in 11 starts for St. Louis this season.
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