The Cardinals won a huge game September 16 against the Washington Nationals, by a score of four to two, and keep their two game lead in the NL Central over the Cubs.

The offense last night all came from one man, left fielder Marcell Ozuna. Ozuna went 2-4 last night with four RBI’s, two on a first inning home run off of Stephen Strasburg, and another two on an RBI double in the seventh off of reliever Hunter Strickland. That was not all Ozuna had however, as he even gunned down Asdrubal Cabrera trying to score, which would have given the Nationals a lead. Adding on to the offense, the Cardinals stole four bases last night, by Yadier Molina, Dexter Fowler, Tommy Edman and Kolten Wong. This jumpstarted the offense by seemingly always having a runner in scoring position. 

“Ozuna came up big last night, hopefully we can get the same production from him here on out, he’s been struggling recently,” senior Blake Haffer said. 

The pitching was the story last night. Both teams had excellent starts from their respective starters. Strasburg went five innings for the Nationals, and only allowed the two runs on the Ozuna homer, and struck out six. That left the door open for the Nationals pen, which saw Tanner Rainey toss a scoreless sixth. Ozuna’s double in the seventh charged runs to each of Sean Doolittle and Strickland, though Strickland was on the mound for the at bat. Wander Suero came on for the eighth, and shut down the Cardinals. As for St. Louis, Dakota Hudson went seven strong innings, allowing only two runs, though only striking out one batter. He was followed by John Brebbia who got one out, which led the way for Andrew Miller to get a few left handers out, which he did over an inning and a third. Carlos Martinez was brought in for the save, and got it on two pitches, his 20th. 

“It was a good game last night. Very quick and not too much offense. I enjoyed watching it,” senior Jonas Boyle said.

Last nights game was big for the Cardinals for multiple reasons. The Nationals are a playoff bound team, and beating them is a good sign for October. However, after the slump in the Milwaukee series over the weekend, the Cubs gained two games in the NL Central, and the win last night halted their momentum. Additionally, with all of the games the Cardinals and Cubs play over the final two weeks, if the Cardinals fall into the wild card, getting a better record than Washington would ensure home field advantage for the one game playoff.

September 17, the Cardinals look to take the series with Miles Mikolas on the mound against Washington southpaw Patrick Corbin. First pitch is scheduled for 6:45.