SAN FRANCISCO _ Tyler O'Neill made the first mistake for the St. Louis Cardinals in the fourth inning Saturday night at Oracle Park. With runners at first and second, left fielder O'Neill was camped under a fly ball hit by San Francisco's Joe Panik. Suddenly, O'Neill took his eye off the ball and looked toward center fielder Dexter Fowler, as if he had heard Fowler call it, which Fowler apparently hadn't.
The ball dropped, with the error loading the bases.
The next one was on starter Miles Mikolas, although perhaps it wasn't that big a mistake other than that the result went to the shortest part of the park. After a visit from pitching coach Mike Maddux, Mikolas threw a slider to righthanded-hitting pinch batter Austin Slater who managed to loft it 336 feet and over the 25-foot-high right-field wall for a grand slam, breaking a 1-1 tie and leading to an 8-4 Giants victory.
The Cardinals' modest winning streak was snipped at three games and they enter Sunday's final game before the All-Star break only one game over .500 at 44-43 but still only 1{ games out of first place in the National League Central Division.
Slater, just recalled from Sacramento, has five extra-base hits plus a single in 11 at-bats. The grand slam was the fifth allowed by Cardinals pitchers this season while the Cardinals haven't hit any.
The Cardinals found their own satisfaction in the chummy right-field seats in the eighth as Paul Goldschmidt hit his 13th at this park, most by a visiting player, with two on to cut into the Giants' lead a bit.
Goldschmidt, who has 16 home runs for the season, and two in two nights here, has had extra-base hits in his past four games.
The Giants didn't exactly belabor Mikolas in the fourth as Kevin Pillar, hitting ahead of Panik, had looped a single into right center. But, with the Cardinals down four runs and Mikolas already at 72 pitches for four innings, he was pulled for a pinch hitter. Mikolas, whose record dropped to 5-9 (he was 18-4 last year) mostly was efficient, though, striking out six.
Mikolas walked no one, extending his streak to 33 starts in which he has walked two or fewer hitters.
Jose Martinez had made hard contact off San Francisco lefthander Madison Bumgarner in his Cardinal career, going five for his first eight off the Giants' ace. Then Martinez really made contact, drilling Bumgarner in the left elbow area with a line drive which turned into an infield single in the first inning.
That single followed a leadoff looper to center by Tommy Edman. Bumgarner, after receiving medical attention from the Giants' trainer, stayed in the game _ only for a while, as it turned out. Bumgarner struck out Paul DeJong but gave up a run-scoring hit by Goldschmidt, who is 23 for 67 (.343) in his career against Bumgarner.
But that was all the Cardinals got in the first as O'Neill flied out and Dexter Fowler fanned on a full-count pitch, Bumgarner's 30th of the inning.
The Giants then tied the score at 1-1 in their first, an inning opened by Brandon Belt's single to center. Mike Yastrzemski struck out but Buster Posey blooped a single to right and Alex Dickerson was nicked by a pitch.
O'Neill drifted into the left-field corner to pull down Pablo Sandoval's long fly ball but Belt scored on the sacrifice fly.
Bumgarner finished the Cardinals' second and struck out when he hit in the Giants' half. But, he came off the mound before the start of the third with considerable swelling in his arm. X-rays taken, however, were negative and the injury was described as an elbow contusion.
Relievers Sam Dyson nd Reyes Moronta each blanked the Cardinals for two innings, with the hard-throwing Moronta striking out four. The Cardinals posed a mild threat in the sixth when O'Neill reached on a pop fly that catcher Posey dropped at the mound and Fowler, who had extended his hitting streak to nine games, singled. But Matt Wieters struck out.
Daniel Ponce de Leon, impressive for the Cardinals as a both a starter and reliever after his couple of call-ups from Memphis, knocked off two scoreless innings, striking out three, giving him 4 2/3 scoreless innings with six strikeouts in two outings spread over the past three days.
San Francisco touched up Tyler Webb for three runs in the seventh on a single by Yastrzemski, a triple by Dickerson and a two-run homer by Sandoval. Three of the four hits allowed by Webb were to lefthanded batters, whom he had held to a .155 average previously.
