Cardinals Walk Off Cincinnati in Pitching Carousel; Torres Delivers

The St. Louis Cardinals scraped together just enough offensive firepower to survive a slugfest against the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday at Busch Stadium, winning 5-3 in a game that featured more pitching changes than a team in full-blown collapse mode. This wasn’t pretty baseball, folks. This was the kind of ballgame where both teams looked like they were playing with half their roster.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: Sam Moll didn’t record a single out. The Reds’ reliever walked one batter and allowed two hits without getting anyone out, handing the Cardinals the opening they needed in the fifth inning. That’s the kind of performance that gets you demoted faster than you can say “minor league option.” For a team supposedly in contention, the Reds couldn’t afford this kind of carelessness in critical moments.

McLain’s Heroics Go to Waste

Matt McLain had himself quite the afternoon for Cincinnati, launching two solo shots and driving in two runs across four at-bats. The kid showed some legitimate power stroke, going yard in the third inning and again in the seventh. Tyler Stephenson joined the home run parade earlier in that third-inning sequence, giving the Reds an early 2-0 lead that looked downright comfortable at the time. But comfort is a luxury you don’t get when your bullpen decides to take a Sunday stroll.

Here’s the brutal truth: McLain’s two homers should have been enough to carry Cincinnati to victory. Instead, the Reds’ pitching staff imploded like a cheap folding chair, and the Cardinals capitalized with ruthless efficiency. That’s baseball in 2026, apparently. You can out-hit your opponent and still find yourself on the losing end of the scoreboard.

Torres Provides the Dagger

Bryan Torres, a guy who’s hardly been a household name this season, stepped up with the kind of at-bat that defines close games. His two-run homer in the fifth inning off that Swiss cheese relief corps turned the game on its head. Jordan Walker had already knocked in a run with a sharp line drive double moments earlier, but Torres’ blast was the knockout punch Cincinnati’s pitching staff fully deserved to take.

Ryne Stanek got credit for the win despite working just two-thirds of an inning, which tells you everything you need to know about how chaotic this game was. Riley O'Brien cleaned up nicely for the save, working a scoreless ninth inning with authority. The Cardinals’ bullpen wasn’t brilliant, but they got the job done when it mattered most, which is more than can be said for their Cincinnati counterparts.

The Reds left this game on the table. McLain played his heart out, Stephenson contributed, but when your relief pitching looks like a spring training session, you’re going to lose close games. St. Louis didn’t win this one; Cincinnati gave it away. On a Sunday at Busch Stadium, that’s the kind of loss that stings for days.