Just In: Braves come up short in comeback bid against Cardinals.

A four-run inning for the St. Louis Cardinals ended up being enough for their pitching staff to just about hold onto in this one. The Atlanta Braves made a serious rally in the ninth inning in order to make a comeback but ultimately they fell short and ended up suffering a 4-3 defat in the series opener in St. Louis.

The first inning served as a dark omen for the Braves and Marcell Ozuna in particular. Atlanta’s leading slugger on the season hit one a ton towards left field but instead of being rewarded with a visit to one of the bases, Ozuna was left making the U-turn to the dugout after Michael Siani made a diving catch to end the inning right then and there. That was the first time where a Braves player would hit one deep while coming up empty-handed but it wouldn’t be the last time, either.

Both teams stayed quiet for the first two-and-a-half innings of this one and unfortunately for us Braves fans, it was the Cardinals who came through in a big way in the third inning. While Michael Siani would find himself on second base with one out following a wild pitch, it seemed like Spencer Schwellenbach would be able to mitigate the damage and even escape any serious trouble after getting to two outs on the board.

Sadly, that didn’t end up being the case as the Cardinals got to work with two outs on the board. Alec Burleson was given the gift of a middle-middle cutter that he proceeded to shoot up the left field line for an RBI double that put the Cardinals on the board first. Willson Contreras marked his return from the IL with a chopper (on an 0-2 count, mind you) that got past Orlando Arcia and into the outfield for an RBI single that made it 2-0 Cardinals. Schwellenbach got to two strikes once again on Brendan Donovan but Donovan looped one out of the reach of Ozzie Albies’ glove for another single to make it 3-0.

Schwellenbach got to two strikes once again but the next run he conceded wasn’t really due to getting beat by the batter. Instead, Sean Murphy attempted to catch Donovan stealing second. Arcia took the catch and Donovan proceeded to initiate a rundown. During the rundown, Nolan Gorman snuck down the line and scored before Donovan was tagged to end the inning 4-0 in favor of the Cardinals. Just like that, this game quickly went from being a budding pitchers’ duel to St. Louis suddenly feeling a bit comfortable in the lead.