The Cardinals were their own worst enemies on Sunday in an 8-7 loss to the Diamondbacks. The Cardinals committed three errors and failed to get a sweep of Arizona.
The Diamondbacks scored their first run of the game with a when Craig Counsell drove in Jeff DaVanon with a grounder to second. In the previous at bat, DaVanon raced to third on a fielding error by Albert Pujols.
Arizona made it 2-0 in the sixth after David Eckstein committed a one-out error. His miscue put Conor Jackson to reach first and put Luis Gonzalez on second. After Shawn Green moved Gonzalez to third with a ground ball, Johnny Estrada poked a two-out single off Chris Carpenter to bring both Gonzalez and Jackson home to give the Diamondbacks a 3-0 advantage.
But the Cardinals weren’t the only ones making mistakes. Counsell’s fielding error on a Scott Rolen grounder allowed John Rodriguez to race home for St. Louis’ first score. Two batters later, Yadier Molina delivered a two-run single to tie the game 3-3. Reliever Luis Vizcaino hit the first batter he saw, Aaron Miles to load the bases. The threat ended when So Taguchi struck out swinging to end the inning.
With rookie reliever Adam Wainwright on the mound, Arizona quickly mounted another rally. Wainwright put two runners on to start the inning and got one out before getting pulled for Randy Flores. He gave up a two-run, ground-rule double to Chad Tracy to break the 3-3 tie. Flores then served up a single to Luis Gonzalez, which ended Flores’ day. In came Braden Looper who recorded an out, before offering back-to-back RBI singles to Green and Estrada. That made it 7-3.
The Cardinals rallied one more time but fell short with three runs in the seventh. Albert Pujols drove in a run with a sacrifice fly, John Rodriguez scored on a throwing error by Tracy and Larry Bigbie singled in Jim Edmonds to make it 7-6.
