Cincinnati Reds at St. Louis Cardinals: Final Score & Recap

The St. Louis Cardinals pulled away from the Cincinnati Reds on Friday night at Busch Stadium, winning 10-3 behind a dominant sixth inning and steady pitching that held Cincinnati in check after an early deficit. The DiamondIQ model entered the game with St. Louis as a 58% favorite, and by the final out that estimate had climbed to 100%, a reflection of how completely the Cardinals seized control once they erased a first-inning hole.

Cincinnati struck first, plating three runs in the top of the first, but St. Louis answered methodically before blowing the game open in the sixth. The biggest individual swing of the night came in that sixth frame, when Lars Nootbaar laced a double off Reds reliever Zach Maxwell that shifted win probability by plus-12.6 points, the single most impactful plate appearance of the contest. Earlier in the game, Alec Burleson had provided the game-tying or lead-changing moment in the third with a home run off Brady Singer worth plus-11.0 points of win probability, and Jordan Walker contributed a double off Brock Burke in the fifth that added another plus-9.8 points. On the Cincinnati side, Spencer Steer grounded into a double play in the top of the fifth against Hunter Dobbins, a minus-9.5-point swing that effectively ended any realistic Reds comeback bid.

When accounting for cumulative win-probability added, Nootbaar finished as the game's top offensive contributor at plus-11.6 WPA, followed closely by Walker at plus-11.2 and Burleson at plus-8.8 with a team-best RE24 of plus-1.3 among position players. On the mound, Hunter Dobbins was the Cardinals' most valuable arm at plus-13.6 WPA, with Singer adding plus-5.2 and Kyle Leahy contributing plus-1.8. Cincinnati finished with three errors against none for St. Louis, a disparity that compounded the club's difficulties in a lopsided final.