Cardinals tie Mets in 9th before game gets suspended

Kolten Wong and Harrison Bader delivered back-to-back run-scoring hits with two outs in the ninth inning Thursday night for the visiting St. Louis Cardinals, who managed to tie the New York Mets 4-4 in a game that was subsequently suspended due to torrential rains. The game, which was officially suspended after a delay of about 50 minutes, will resume at 6:10 p.m. EDT on Friday, an hour before the scheduled start of the second game of the four-game series.

The series opener was also delayed after the bottom of the eighth when the grounds crew rolled out the tarp. But Mets players, led by rookie first baseman Pete Alonso, appeared to convince the umpiring crew to let the teams play on, and the tarp was rolled back after it reached centre field. The crew then applied drying agent, and the game resumed after a delay of nine minutes. Mets closer Edwin Diaz walked leadoff batter Marcell Ozuna and retired the next two batters before Wong singled off the left field fence to bring home Ozuna.

Bader, a native of the New York area who was playing in front of more than 100 family members and friends, followed with a game-tying double to left. He slipped on the drenched basepaths between second and third and was tagged out, after which the game was delayed a second time. The ninth-inning comeback by the Cardinals extended Mets ace Jacob deGrom's winless streak to six starts. DeGrom allowed two runs on six hits and no walks while striking out eight and throwing a season-high 116 pitches over seven innings.

The Mets rescued deGrom immediately after he gave up runs in the third and sixth innings. In the third, Bader doubled with one out for the Cardinals' first hit, stole third and scored on a two-out infield single into the shift by left-handed hitting Matt Carpenter. But the Mets came right back in the bottom of the inning when Jeff McNeil singled with two outs and Michael Conforto followed with a homer.

St. Louis' Paul DeJong tied the game in the sixth when he hit a one-out homer. The Mets answered in the bottom of the inning when Alonso doubled with one out and scored on Dominic Smith's single. Smith went to third on a single by Todd Frazier and scored on Amed Rosario's sacrifice fly. Cardinals starter Jack Flaherty allowed the four runs on six hits and two walks while striking out eight over 5 1/3 innings.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)