Relying on a dash of 'Whiteyball,' Cardinals turn walks, outs into runs to edge Oakland

A couple of singles and a run scored weren’t the only gifts the game had in mind for the Cardinals’ Gold Glove-winning third baseman.

Arenado, who turned 33 on Tuesday, had six assists going into the ninth inning, one shy of the season-high for the position anywhere else in the majors. Arenado had two hotshot grounders in the eighth inning that he casually turned into outs for lefty reliever JoJo Romero. A 10-time Gold Glove winner, Arenado manned the spot on the field once patrolled by a former high school teammate, Matt Chapman, when he was on the A’s. Arenado didn’t play as deep on the field as Chapman did here. Didn’t need to.

Three of Arenado’s assists came against Zack Gelof, the A’s second baseman who pulled grounder after grounder to the right side of the infield and each time could not outrun Arenado’s throw.

3,296

That’s it.

That’s the number.

That’s the announced crowd who gathered for the game.

It's not the smallest crowd the Cardinals have ever played in front of. They had a smaller crowd hosting the Pirates in 1989, for example, and back in 2017 they played in front of a crowd of 2,600 at PNC Park. Speaking of the Pirates, the A's next home series is against them.

Oakland capitalizes on error(s)

Of the first five runs scored in the game, only one came with a simple swing. The others were all intricate segments of 90 feet or so pieced together like clockwork. It took a throwing error on the infield to put the game’s first offensive series in such motion.

Tyler Nevin skipped a grounder up the middle that Winn got to with his glove, but his throw sailed wide of first base.

Nevin took second.

He then scored two batters later on a single up the middle for the A’s 1-0 lead.

Lynn pitched around a double in the fourth inning, helped out by a sinker that he slipped past Nevin to end an eight-pitch at-bat with a strikeout. In the next inning – the fifth – catcher Kyle McCann also saw a sequence of different fastballs from Lynn. When the Cardinals’ right-hander shifted from cutter to four-seam fastball, the ball stayed up and over the middle of the plate until McCann put it up and over the wall in right-center field. The errant fastball became McCann’s first homer in the majors and broke the tie. Oakland would hold the lead for as long as it took the Cardinals to get a couple of sacrifice flies a few minutes later.