The Arizona Diamondbacks made it obvious they appreciated Paul Goldschmidt on his return to the desert, honoring him with a tribute video before the game and multiple ovations throughout the evening.
Clearly, everyone thought this night was a pretty big deal — except for the man being honored. The stoic first baseman still had work to do.
Goldschmidt on Monday smacked a two-run homer in his Chase Field reunion and Yadier Molina also had a two-run shot as the St Louis Cardinals beat the Diamondbacks 9-7 for their sixth straight win.
Photo: Joe Camporeale-USA Today
“It’s all what you make of it, and for me this was just another game,” Goldschmidt said. “I’m appreciative of all the fans coming out, cheering me on, the standing ovation, but I just didn’t want to make too big a deal of it.”
For Goldschmidt, the real importance of the game was that his team won again.
The Cardinals have a three-and-a-half-game lead over the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Central. St Louis have five games remaining in the regular season, while Milwaukee have six.
The Diamondbacks — who have hung around the fringes of the National League wild-card race for months — were eliminated from post-season contention.
“We left some money on the table throughout the course of the season, and those are the things that we are going to have to address and tighten up a little bit,” Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said.
Goldschmidt had a big night on his return to Arizona after playing eight seasons for the Diamondbacks from 2011 to last year.
He got a loud ovation from fans in the first inning before drawing a walk.
In the third inning, he drove a changeup from Alex Young just over the right-center field fence for his 32nd homer of the season and the 100th of his career at Chase Field, which is the most in the stadium’s history.
“Good for Goldy,” St Louis manager Mike Shildt said.
“Obviously, in the moment, but it’s just a really special return for him I’m sure,” he said. “Really class job with the tribute.”
Adam Wainwright (14-9) won his fifth straight start, though he did not have his best stuff. He gave up eight hits and five runs over five innings.
Young (7-5) gave up six earned runs over five innings. He struck out five and walked two.
Arizona fell behind 6-2 in the fifth inning after Molina’s two-run homer, but scored three runs off Wainwright in the fifth to pull within one.
St Louis got breathing room in the eighth inning when Harrison Bader ripped a solo homer to left field, before the offense added two more runs in the ninth.
Carlos Martinez earned his 24th save.
The Cardinals were sharp in another win, despite coming off an intense four-game sweep of the Chicago Cubs, who are also fighting for playoff position.
Goldschmidt said the team’s stoic personality has been an asset.
“We don’t get too down or too excited,” Goldschmidt said. “We just play hard every day.”
Elsewhere, the Rays moved into sole possession of the second American League wild-card spot with a 7-4 win over the Red Sox, the Nationals routed the Phillies 7-2, the Marlins mastered the Mets 8-4 and the Blue Jays edged the Orioles 11-10 in 15 innings.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier