WASHINGTON _ Cleanup hitter Marcell Ozuna hit one home run to put the Cardinals ahead and another to bring them back from disaster Tuesday night in the nation's capital.
Ozuna's two homers sped the Cardinals to an 11-8 victory that Yadier Molina's grand slam helped secure against Washington at Nationals Park. That show of late force came only after the hosts had flipped the game in the middle innings against a bullpen that is decidedly going through some renovations. The Nats the tied the game, 4-4, twice getting a run home with a bases-loaded walk.
Ozuna then answered with the first of three home runs hit by the Cardinals in the top of the sixth inning.
That regained their lead and gave the Cardinals' bullpen something else to protect. A run in the ninth brought John Brebbia in to finish the game for the bullpen. Brebbia struck out the first batter he faced, and the second, Ryan Zimmerman, hit a ball bound for the Nats' bullpen and a three-run homer. Yairo Munoz leaped and got a glove on the ball to yank it back into the field of play for a two-run double. The tying run did come to the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning, forcing the Cardinals to finally go to Jordan Hicks for the one-out save. He secured his sixth.
The game took 4 hours, 10 minutes to play.
Starter John Gant was strong through four innings as the Cardinals built a 4-0 lead for him. There was an undercurrent of trouble though with walks that he allowed and then erased, allowed and then erased. Gant would walk five batters in his 41/3 innings, and it was that fifth one that loaded the bases and bumped him from the game. Then the trouble started. Lefty Tyler Webb could not get consecutive hitters out, and instead twice walked batters with the bases loaded.
The second time tied the game.
Bryce Harper, who reached base in his first four plate appearances, had the two-run double at the heart of the Nats rally.
Molina's sixth career grand slam came in the top of the ninth inning and drained any drama from whom the Cardinals might turn to for a save situation. Dominic Leone, after a scoreless eighth, remained in the game to finish it up and try for his first save of the season. It did not happen. Brebbia entered with two runners on base.
