The St. Louis Cardinals defeated the Houston Astros 7-5 at Daikin Park on April 18, 2026, completing the win despite a late Houston push that briefly tightened the game. The DiamondIQ model had entered the day giving the home Astros just a 31 percent chance of winning, and that estimate fell steadily to zero as St. Louis built its advantage through the early innings. The Cardinals scored two in the first, added two more in the third, and tacked on single runs in the sixth and seventh before Houston managed three in the ninth in a rally that came too late to matter.
The single most consequential offensive moment came in the top of the third, when Masyn Winn connected for a home run off Lance McCullers Jr. that shifted win probability by plus 16.7 percent in St. Louis's favor, the largest batting swing of the game. José Fermín added a solo shot in the sixth off Colton Gordon worth plus 7.3 percent. On the Houston side, the closest the Astros came to a meaningful swing came from Yordan Alvarez, whose strikeout to end the ninth off Riley O'Brien represented a plus 14.4 percent WPA event from the Cardinals' perspective, snuffing Houston's final threat. An earlier Christian Walker double play in the eighth had already deflated a potential Houston rally, costing the Astros 6.1 percent in win probability.
Among the top performers by the DiamondIQ model's WPA accounting, Yordan Alvarez led all players at plus 20.8 percent despite the loss, driven largely by his contributions earlier in the game before that final strikeout. Winn finished second overall at plus 15.7 percent WPA with a plus 1.0 RE24, while Fermín added plus 7.1 percent. On the pitching side, Andre Pallante was the most valuable arm by WPA at plus 13.8 percent, with Gordon Graceffo contributing plus 5.8 percent in support of the Cardinals' staff effort. St. Louis finished with ten hits and no errors against Houston's four hits and one error.
Analysis generated by DiamondIQ's model.