The visiting Washington Nationals will look to complete a three-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday afternoon.
It will be the final home game of the season for the Cardinals, who are 37-43 at Busch Stadium.
On Saturday, the Nationals scored four runs in the top of the 11th inning and held on for an 8-5 win. Washington (73-82) has won six of its past seven games, and a victory Sunday would give the team a .500 mark in September (8-8) despite a recent seven-game losing streak.
The Cardinals (75-80), meanwhile, have lost four games in a row. After Sunday’s game, they will finish the season at Pittsburgh and Milwaukee.
Both St. Louis and Washington sit fourth in their respective divisions with seven games remaining, and both have been eliminated from postseason contention.
The Nationals will start right-hander Jake Irvin (2-9, 5.51 ERA) on Sunday, and the Cardinals will counter with rookie left-hander Quinn Mathews (2-3, 3.62).
Irvin has struggled since returning from the injured list in late July, going 0-5 with a 5.84 ERA in nine games (eight starts). Last time out, he followed an opener for the first time in his four-year career and gave up three runs on two hits and four walks over five innings against the Los Angeles Angels on Sept. 12. He struck out six and didn’t figure into the decision of a 6-5 loss in 10 innings.
Irvin has allowed 16 first-inning runs in 19 starts this season.
Mathews will make his eighth major league start. Over his past four starts, he is 2-1 with a 1.93 ERA. In his most recent game, he allowed one run on four hits over 6 2/3 innings of a 2-1 win Monday against the San Francisco Giants. He struck out a career-high eight batters and walked two. He retired the first 10 batters he faced and did not allow a hit until the sixth.
“(Catcher Leo Bernal) kind of navigated the first three innings — I think I shook one pitch in three innings, which is unbelievable, to be honest with you,” Mathews said. “So a lot of credit to Bernal there, getting me through the first three when I wasn’t as sharp as I would have liked to have been.”
Saturday night, the Nationals won despite blowing their 40th and 41st save chances of the season, losing a 3-2 lead in the ninth and a 4-3 lead in the 10th.
Jose Tena had the big hit in the 11th, a two-run double, and the bullpen held on, with Will Dion getting the final out for his first major league save. Washington’s Jorbit Vivas had four hits, and Daylen Lile smacked a two-run homer.
Jose Fermin and Ivan Herrera had three hits each for St. Louis.
The Cardinals pulled to 8-5 and loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom of the 11th, but Nationals relievers retired three hitters in a row — two by strikeout — to end the game.
For the game, St. Louis was called for a catcher’s interference, committed two errors and left 13 men on base.
“They’ve done a really nice job of playing some pretty clean baseball,” manager Oliver Marmol said of his team, “and even when we don’t, you have the winning run up to the plate in extra innings. There’s parts of that game that are highly frustrating.”
