Contreras homers twice to help Cardinals knock off Padres 6-5 in 10 innings

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This article was published 29/08/2023 (799 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Willson Contreras put on a show for his parents.

The St. Louis catcher homered twice, pinch-hitter Tommy Edman singled in the deciding run in the 10th inning and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Diego Padres 6-5 on Tuesday night to snap a four-game losing streak.

Edman slammed the first pitch from Josh Hader (0-2) to left field with one out to bring in Maysn Winn. Richie Palacios set up the winning run with a two-strike bunt to move Winn to third.

Contreras was playing in front his parents for the first time as a member of the Cardinals. Olga and William Contreras flew in from Venezuela earlier in the day.

“Having my family in the stands, it means a lot to me,” Contreras said. “I’m here because of them. I owe them a lot.”

Contreras cut it to 4-3 in the sixth with his first homer, then tied it at 5 with a two-run homer in the eighth off Robert Suarez. After the tying blast, Contreras smiled and pointed his parents in the stands after he touched home plate.

“I was just trying to do something good for them,” Contreras said. “We haven’t played well lately and we needed something to change to mood around here.”

Contreras has 15 homers. He has recorded three multi-homer games this season and 14 overall. He becomes only the second St. Louis catcher to have three multi-homer games in the same season. Tom Pagnozzi did it in 1996.

JoJo Romero (4-1) struck out two batters in the 10th.

Luis Campusano homered for San Diego, which has lost four of five to fall to 7-16 in August. The Padres are 0-11 in extra-inning games.

Matthew Batten had four hits for San Diego. Ha-Seong Kim had two hits and reached base three times. He drove in a run in the eighth with a sacrifice fly.

Edman was originally given the night off by manager Oliver Marmol. He felt like Edman would be the perfect choice to pinch hit with the contest on the line.

“He’s a student of the game,” Marmol said. ”He was ready for it.”

Edman had his fourth career walkoff hit.

“That was a good way to end the off day,” Edman said. “Just thought I could contribute in some way. We haven’t had too many wins like that recently. It felt pretty good,”

San Diego became the first team to lose 11 successive extra inning contests since Tampa Bay also dropped 11 in a row in 2015.

“We had some hits, but we did leave some guys on base,” San Diego manager Bob Melvin said. “Those are the things you look back on.”

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Cardinals: LHP Matthew Liberatore (lower back tightness) pitched for Triple-A Memphis and allowed five runs and four hits in 3 2/3 innings. OF Lars Nootbaar will start for Memphis on Wednesday and Thursday. He has been out since August 18 because of a lower abdomen contusion. He is likely to rejoin the team Friday.

UP NEXT

St. Louis RHP Miles Mikolas (6-10, 4.66) will face San Diego LHP Rich Hill (7-13, 5.21) in the finale of the three-game series Wednesday.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb