Jordan Walker went 5 for 5, Lars Nootbaar hit a bases-clearing two-strike double in the seventh inning and added a two-run homer in the ninth inning, and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the New York Yankees 14-7 on Sunday.
New York’s lead in the American League East over Baltimore was cut to a half-game.
Walker hit a long two-run homer in the fifth inning and drove in three runs. Walker’s five-hit game was the first by a Cardinal since Matt Carpenter did it in 2018. This came after Walker had only one hit in his first two games back from Triple-A Memphis.
At 22 years and 102 days old, Walker became the third-youngest Cardinal to get five hits in a game, behind Frank Snyder (21 years, 86 days on Sept. 21, 1915) and Rogers Hornsby (20 years, 62 days on June 28, 2016).
“I think five-hit days are sick,” Walker said. “It’s very nice to have for sure but I’m always confident in my abilities. But it’s definitely nice.”
After the game, Walker received a signed baseball from pitcher Kyle Gibson, the home run ball, and a signed scorecard from St. Louis television play-by-play broadcaster Chip Caray to celebrate the occasion.
“It’s good to see him out there and just doing what he did today,” St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol said about Walker. “Obviously he’s not going to get five hits every day, but he stayed on the ball extremely well and just looks like he’s having fun out there.”
Nootbaar followed Walker’s fourth hit by hitting a fly ball to right field. New York’s Juan Soto seemed to have trouble reading the ball, which went over his head and allowed the Cardinals to take a 10-7 lead.
“I didn’t know, I was hoping here with the shorter right field that maybe it could distract him or something,” Nootbaar said about Soto’s read. “I was just hoping for anything at that point.”
“He just hit a line drive, it got good backspin and it just went over my head,” Soto said.
Nootbaar had a career-high five RBIs and got his fourth hit to give the Cardinals a lead in the seventh inning or later this season.
Victor Scott II hit an RBI double and scored due to a throwing error by reliever Phil Bickford. The Cardinals set season highs for runs and hits (21) and were 8 for 18 with runners in scoring position.
St. Louis had double-digit hits for the sixth time in seven games and finished with at least 20 hits for the first time since getting 23 hits at Cincinnati on Sept. 1, 2020.
Nootbaar hit his ninth homer after Walker started the ninth inning with his fourth single.
Anthony Rizzo hit an RBI double to start a three-run fifth inning, followed by run-scoring singles from Alex Verdugo and Gleyber Torres.
Anthony Volpe hit an RBI single and Torres added a tying sacrifice fly in the sixth inning, but the Yankees lost for the fourth time in six games and allowed their most hits since giving up 24 to Cleveland on Aug. 15, 2019.
“We just couldn’t close out that inning,” New York manager Aaron Boone said. “I think we were still tied with two outs and they got all five of those runs. So, one of those games.”
JoJo Romero (6-2) retired Soto to end the sixth inning and set up the big inning for the Cardinals.
Walker hit his first homer since Sept. 17 to extend the St. Louis lead to 7-2. He also had an RBI single in the second inning to give the Cardinals a 1-0 lead.
Rookie Masyn Wynn hit a two-run double and Luken Baker hit a two-run homer in a four-run fourth inning off Nestor Cortes for the Cardinals, who were 0-7 in the regular season at Yankee Stadium before winning the last two games of the series.
Giancarlo Stanton homered and Jazz Chisholm Jr. scored on an error in the second inning. Aaron Judge stayed at 51 homers, going homerless for the sixth straight game.
St. Louis starter Miles Mikolas allowed five runs (three earned) and seven hits in four-plus innings.
