St. Louis vs New York: Mets Victorious After Knockout Blow to Wellemeyer

Todd Wellemeyer was knocked around in his second start after returning from elbow inflammation that cost him his next few starts. The Mets exploded on the Louisville native who threw only five innings with six earned on 12 hits as the Mets defeated the Cardinals 7-4 on Tuesday.

This was Wellemeyer's second bad outing in his last three starts as he was pounded by the Phillies for eight earned on June 13. After such a strong outing by Kyle Lohse on Monday, this is not what St. Louis needed to keep ahead of the Brewers and keep close to the Cubs.

Ramon Castro, Carlos Delgado, Ryan Church, David Wright, and Endy Chavez all recorded multi-hit games for the Mets. The Redbirds may have woken up a sleeping giant in New York as they have been in a recent decline starting in their historic collapse last September.

The Cardinals had jumped out to a 3-1 lead after a Rick Ankiel two-run homer in the first inning put them on top. Skip Schumaker added an RBI double in the second to give Wellemeyer a healthy lead. However, it was not to be.

As is the story for the past few weeks, the Cardinals starters and relievers failed to hold the lead yet again as they went down in flames. This has been the Achilles heel for St. Louis as they cannot seem to keep their hitting and pitching on the same page long enough to make a run for the NL Central crown.

The damage could have been worse for the Redbirds as the Mets left another nine base-runners stranded. The offense for New York was spread throughout the lineup as only two of the nine starting batters failed to record a hit.

Wellemeyer, reminiscent of an NFL linebacker because of his size, needed to have a strong outing to keep up with his fellow teammate Kyle Lohse for an All-Star bid. Instead, he pitched one of his worst starts of the year.

With the huge showdown with the Cubs looming this weekend, the Cardinals need to go in with as much momentum as possible to try and take the NL Central lead.

Games like this make it very hard to do so.