Cardinals shut out Dodgers despite plenty of scoring opportunities

The Dodgers started their road trip with a 5-0 shutout loss to the Cardinals in Tommy Edman’s return to Busch Stadium.

The Dodgers (38-26) and Cardinals (35-28) opened a three-game series at Busch Stadium Friday night after an hour and 17-minute rain delay. Once the game finally started, the Dodgers’ bats apparently remained on a delay.

There were scoring opportunities for the Dodgers, but they failed to come up with a big hit and went a combined 1-for-13 with RISP. They left nine men on base in what turned into a rainy night without runs for the Dodgers in a 5-0 loss to St. Louis.

Tommy Edman received a standing ovation before his first at-bat back in front of the St. Louis crowd. Edman was drafted by the Cardinals out of Stanford in the 6th round of the 2016 draft and played his entire career with the Cards until he was traded to the Dodgers at the deadline last season.

Justin Wrobleski touched 100-mph on his fastball to Brendan Donovan in the first inning, but Pedro Pagés took Wrobleski deep with a big two-out two-run home run to give the Cardinals a 2-0 lead after two innings.

The Dodgers got the tying runs on base against veteran Sonny Gray with back-to-back singles from Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts to open the third, but Gray struck back with back-to-back strikeouts of Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernández. Gray induced a fly out from Max Muncy, and the Dodgers threw away another scoring opportunity.

A two-out two-run base hit for Brendan Donovan doubled the Cardinals lead in the bottom of the fifth.

The Dodgers stranded two more runners in the sixth with a subtle reminder that Nolan Arenado is still good defensively on a difficult catch in foul territory to retire Michael Conforto for the third out.

Arenado tormented the Dodgers with his glove as well as his bat going 3-for-3 versus Wrobleski.

The Dodgers got men to second and third with nobody out in the eighth and worked another scoring opportunity with two two-strike hits to start the rally.

Mookie Betts, like Arenado, collected three hits on the night against St. Louis pitching including a leadoff single against JoJo Romero in the fateful eighth. Freddie Freeman followed with a double that spurred a pitching change for the Red Birds.

Phil Maton struck out Teoscar Hernández and Max Muncy, and he got Andy Pages out on a little infield grounder to completely shut down the L.A. offense and preserve the shutout.

Willson Contreras hit a solo home run off Chris Stratton in the home half of the eighth and added an insurance run for STL to make it 5-0.

Steven Matz sent the Dodgers down in order with two strikeouts in the ninth to seal the deal on the series opener shutout win for the Cards.

Friday particulars

Home runs: Pedro Pagés (5), Willson Contreras (7)

WP — Sonny Gray (7-1, 3.35): 6 ¹⁄₃ IP, 8 hits, no runs, no walks, 5 strikeouts (90 pitches)

LP — Justin Wrobleski (1-2, 7.20 ERA): 6 IP, 6 hits, 4 Runs, 3, walks, 5 strikeouts (104 pitches)

Up next

The middle game and series finale in St. Louis start early at (11:15 a.m.; SportsNet LA). Yoshinobu Yamamoto (6-4, 2.39 ERA, 1.00 WHIP) will face Erick Fedde (3-5, 3.82 ERA, 1.29 WHIP) weather permitting.