What You Missed Last Night: Cards’ gutsy call, terrible first pitch, HR race tightens

Roughly two weeks ago, the Cardinals’ had less than a 5% chance of making the playoffs, ESPN Stats & Info noted. Those odds have skyrocketed to 89%.

That’s what a 10-game winning streak in September will do for a team.

The Cardinals held on for a 2-1 win at Milwaukee on Tuesday night to get that 10th straight victory. The Brewers loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth ... which was part of the Cardinals’ plan.

Milwaukee had runners on the corners with two outs with Christian Yelich coming to the plate. Cardinals pitcher Giovanny Gallegos intentionally walked Yelich, moving him into scoring position.

Pinch hitter Pablo Reyes could have won the game with a single, but instead struck out and the Cardinals’ winning streak was at 10.

“Listen, a guy is in scoring position at first base with a guy like Yelich,” Cardinals manager Mike Shildt told reporters after the game. “He’s been in that moment quite a bit. I trusted Gio. He’s a strike-thrower, got some serious guts as this entire team does.”

Things are looking up for the Cardinals, as this chart shows:

Historic home run race tightens

Angels star Shohei Ohtani crushed his 45th home run of the season last night, moving within one of the league leaders, the Royals’ Salvador Perez and Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero, Jr.

Stats by Stats said this is the first time in MLB history that three players who had never previously had a 30-homer season all hit 45 or more home runs in the same year. Perez’s previous career high was 27, while it was 22 for Ohtani and 15 for Guerrero.

Alex Morgan’s hat trick

The U.S. women’s national team crushed Paraguay 8-0 on Tuesday night in Cincinnati. Alex Morgan had her fifth career hat trick with goals in the eighth, 14th and 53rd minutes.

The next game for the U.S. women’s team will be Oct. 21 against South Korea at Children’s Mercy Park.

Where there’s a Wil

One-time Royals prospect Wil Myers made a dazzling catch during the Padres’ 6-5 loss to the Giants on Tuesday.

Consider this the catch of the day...

Juuuust a bit outside

MMA star Conor McGregor threw out the ceremonial first pitch before the Cubs’ game against the Twins at Wrigley Field. To quote Harry Doyle from the movie “Major League,” McGregor tried the corner and missed.

The Durham Bulls made a slight addition to that video, incorporating a clip from “Bull Durham,” which portrayed fictional a Bulls team and pitcher Nuke Laloosh. This is funny:

Jays object to steal

During Monday night’s Blue Jays-Rays game, Tampa Bay’s Kevin Kiermaier was thrown out at the plate. On the tag, a card with how Toronto pitchers would attack the Rays hitters fell out of catcher Alejandro Kirk’s wristband.

Kiermaier picked it up and took it to the Rays dugout, as this video shows:

Sportsnet’s Arash Madani, who shared that video, spoke to Kiermaier before Tuesday’s game. Kiermaier thought the paper was his outfield positioning card.

“When it was there, I saw a piece — the play happened so fast, honestly, the play happened so fast,” Kiermaier told Madani. “I picked it up, didn’t know what it was, whether it was mine or not. They’re all pretty similar, and then, as I picked it up, I realized it was that. I never even looked at it, I’ll say that.

“But at the same time, I’m not going to drop it or hand it back. I hope they — I don’t know what their thoughts were about it or whatnot — at the time, though, I saw it on the ground and I picked it up nonchalantly, not thinking anything of it. And haven’t heard anything of it since. Everything was so quick, and after I did it, I was like, ‘Dang, their scouting reports, or whatever it was, were on the ground and I grabbed it.’ Like I said, it got to the point that I’m not going to return it or do that. It’s September, whatever. I didn’t know what was going on.”

Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo said Rays manager Kevin Cash apologized before Tuesday’s game and there were no hard feelings.