Landen Roupp threw six shutout innings, Bryce Eldridge and Christian Koss smacked home runs and the San Francisco Giants beat the visiting St. Louis Cardinals 2-1 on Tuesday night for a second consecutive victory over the National League wild-card contender.
Reiver Sanmartin, Carson Seymour and Joel Kuhnel combined with Roupp (9-13) on a five-hitter. The result, coupled with a win by the Arizona Diamondbacks (78-68) earlier in the evening, dropped the Cardinals (72-74) six games back of the final NL wild-card spot.
Koss had two hits for the Giants (61-85), who will shoot for their first home series sweep of the season Wednesday afternoon when the three-game set concludes.
Thanks to the solo shots by Eldridge in the first inning and Koss in the second, Roupp pitched with a lead most of the night. He allowed two hits and four walks while striking out two.
The homers by Eldridge and Koss, their 16th and fourth of the season, respectively, came off Cardinals starter Quinn Mathews (1-3), who also completed six innings. He limited the Giants to five hits, striking out four and walking two.
The Giants, up 2-0, saw things get a little dicey in the eighth inning thanks to an unusual passed ball on catcher Andrew Knizner on a strikeout pitch that appeared to have stranded two baserunners.
Knizner couldn’t handle the high strike three from Seymour with Leo Bernal at the plate, and the ball caromed toward the Cardinals’ on-deck circle. The catcher gave chase but slipped as he reached for the ball next to a weighted batting ring, then threw late to first base in an attempt to retire Bernal.
Kuhnel was then summoned with the bases loaded and got Joshua Baez to fly out to center field.
Kuhnel stayed on to pitch the ninth and gave up the Cardinals’ lone run on two-out singles by Nathan Church and Bryan Torres sandwiching Church having taken second on fielder’s indifference.
Pinch runner Victor Scott II then stole second to move the potential tying run into scoring position before Kuhnel got Ivan Herrera to ground to shortstop for his seventh save.
The Cardinals went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position and stranded 10. St. Louis was held without an extra-base hit while falling to 4-4 on a nine-game Western swing.