San Francisco Giants at St. Louis Cardinals: Final Score & Recap
Line Score
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SF | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 13 | 2 |
| STL | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 2 |
The Story
The San Francisco Giants escaped Busch Stadium with a 6-5 extra-inning victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on September 16, 2026, overcoming a two-run Cardinals rally in the bottom of the ninth that had briefly shifted the game's complexion. The DiamondIQ model entered the night giving the Cardinals a 61 percent pre-game win probability, but that figure collapsed to zero by the final out, a reflection of how decisively the game turned in San Francisco's favor over the final two innings.
The pivotal blow came in the top of the tenth, when Drew Gilbert launched a home run off Riley O'Brien that swung win probability by 51.7 percent, the single largest play of the game by that measure. That swing was preceded by a dramatic bottom of the ninth in which the Cardinals mounted a genuine threat: an Ivan Herrera walk off Dylan Smith added 18.6 percent to St. Louis's chances, and a Leo Bernal single off Smith moments later pushed that Cardinals spike to 36.2 percent, momentarily making a Cardinals walkoff look plausible. San Francisco's pitching held the damage to two runs in the inning, setting up Gilbert's decisive shot. In the bottom of the tenth, Nathan Church's flyout off Joel Kuhnel was the game's fifth-largest win-probability swing at plus 16.7 percent from a Cardinals standpoint, but it was not enough to extend the game.
Gilbert finished as the game's top performer by both WPA at plus 51.7 percent and RE24 at plus 2.0, his home run serving as the definitive moment of a contest that stayed close through ten innings. Andrew Knizner contributed the second-highest WPA among position players at plus 31.9 percent with a plus 1.5 RE24, while Nathan Church added plus 25.1 percent WPA despite the Cardinals' loss. On the pitching side, Anthony Molina led all pitchers with a plus 35.0 percent WPA for San Francisco, with Matthew Liberatore and Trent Harris each contributing positively as well. The Giants out-hit the Cardinals 13 to 5, though both clubs committed two errors in a game that required ten innings and a grand total of 15 combined runs to decide.