Adams Hits Walk-Off HR

(Busch Stadium) It took sixteen innings, but the St. Louis Cardinals extended their winning streak to five games as they beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-3 on a walk-off home run by Matt Adams.

“I’m ready to go home and go to bed,” said Adams afterwards. “I wasn’t trying to go up there and hit a homer, I was just trying to go up there and put together a good at-bat, get on base, and pass it to the next guy.”

But Adams connected on an 0-1 pitch from Bud Norris and sent it 444 feet away into the seats.

“I think that might be my best bolt, right there,” admitted Adams. “I didn’t even look to see where it landed. It’s one of those ones that I got the barrel to it and didn’t feel the ball come off the bat. I knew I squared it up, knew it was gonna go.”

It was the 50th home run of Adams career and his second career walk-off blast.

–Tyler Lyons allowed just one hit in 4.2 innings of work, logging the final out of the 11th through the 15th innings.

“You gotta be ready for it–especially when you get out there in a situation like we were,” said Lyons. “If you’re feeling good, you just keep running back out there the next inning. There weren’t any situations where we really had to pinch-hit when my spot came up as far as runners being in scoring position, so just try and go out there each inning and give us a chance to win in the bottom half.”

The lefty needed just 9 pitches in each of his two frames of work.

“It helps having efficient innings,” said Lyons. “Those efficient innings allow you to not exert as much energy. Getting back in the dugout, getting to sit in front of the fan, cool off again al little bit. Being efficient was probably the biggest thing in my being able to go as long as I did.”

–The researchers had to dig deep into the archives to find the last time the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers played 16 innings as they did on Friday night.

The two teams split their previous sixteen inning games in 1957 and 1963.

photo credit: Bill Greenblatt/UPI