Tampa Bay Rays at St. Louis Cardinals: Final Score & Recap
Line Score
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| TB | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 1 |
| STL | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 2 |
The Story
The St. Louis Cardinals walked off the Tampa Bay Rays 6-5 in ten innings at Busch Stadium on March 28, 2026, in a game that remained tightly contested through the middle frames before erupting in dramatic fashion late. The DiamondIQ model entered the night giving St. Louis a 54 percent chance to win, a figure that would swing violently in both directions before settling at 100 percent by the final out.
The Cardinals struck first with two runs in the bottom of the first, then watched a scoreless stretch through seven innings give way to two more in the eighth. Tampa Bay refused to fold, however, staging a remarkable ninth-inning rally capped by Nick Fortes, whose single off Ryne Stanek shifted win probability by 32.5 percentage points as the Rays pushed across four runs to take a 5-4 lead into the bottom half. The Cardinals answered with two runs of their own to force extras, setting the stage for a chaotic tenth inning. Yandy Díaz kept Tampa Bay alive with a single off Ryne Stanek that swung win probability 36.5 points, and Jake Fraley's strikeout double play off Stanek proved pivotal in limiting the damage, swinging 16.6 points in St. Louis's favor by stranding runners. In the bottom of the tenth, Victor Scott II advanced the automatic runner with a sacrifice bunt worth 19.3 points of win probability, and JJ Wetherholt delivered the walk-off single off Griffin Jax, a hit that registered as the most consequential play of the game at plus 48.4 percentage points.
Wetherholt finished as the top performer by the DiamondIQ model's accounting, posting a 46.3 percent WPA and a RE24 of plus 1.3, while Díaz matched that run-expectancy figure with a 37.5 percent WPA of his own. On the pitching side, Michael McGreevy was the standout, contributing 30.3 points of win probability in his outing and underpinning a Cardinals staff that ultimately held together when it mattered most. St. Louis committed two errors against Tampa Bay's one, but the Cardinals' late-game execution proved the difference in a narrow, back-and-forth result.