Photo credit: taiwannews.com.tw

By Jeremy Kahn

Tyler O’Neill ended Saturday afternoon’s game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants with one swing of the bat.

O’Neill smashed a solo home run with two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning, helping the Cardinals to their fifth win in their last six games with a 5-4 victory over the Giants at Busch Stadium.

Mark Melancon served up the O’Neill home run, as the Cards smacked their team record eighth walkoff home run of the season.

It was the ninth home run of the season for O’Neill, as they remain in the second spot for the National League Wild Card game and remain behind their division rival, the Milwaukee Brewers for the top spot.

The win by the Cards gave the victory to closer Carlos Martinez, who improved to 8-6 on the season, while Melancon drops to 0-3 for the Giants, who have dropped their last three games.

Adam Wainwright made just his third start of the season for the Cards, as he went 6.1 innings, allowing four runs on eight hits, walking no one and striking out six.

Things were looking good for the Giants, as they led the Cards 4-2 in the bottom of the seventh inning, but Yadier Molina tied up the game with a two-run home run off of Giants starter Dereck Rodriguez.

Aramis Garcia came up with a big hit in the top of the seventh inning, as he gave the Giants a 3-2 lead. Garcia picked up four hits on the afternoon for the Giants.

Garcia went 4-for-4 on the afternoon, a career-high and Garcia now has hits in 10 out of his last 12 games.

Gregor Blanco extended the Giants lead up to 4-2, as he grounded into a fielder’s choice that scored Garcia.

Molina tied up the game with his 19th home run of the season off of Rodriguez, whose day ended following the Molina home run.

Rodriguez went six innings, allowing four runs on seven hits, walking one and striking out two and he will make one start next weekend against the Los Angeles Dodgers at AT&T Park.

This was the first time since his second major league start against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park on June 9 that Rodriguez allowed three or more earned runs in the same game. Rodriguez went 15 consecutive games without allowing three runs or fewer.

Joe Panik picked up three hits and drove in a run for the Giants.

NOTES: Garcia is the first Giants rookie since Austin Slater on June 15, 2017 against the Colorado Rockies on June 18, 2017, to have a four-hit game in his rookie season.

The four-hit game by Garcia came one day after the rookie struck out four times in the same game. Garcia is the first to accomplish this feat since Hunter Pence did it from July 22-24, 2015 and only the second Giants player to do it since 1913, this according to STATS, LLC.

Garcia is only the fifth rookie in major league history to strikeouts four times in a game, and then four hits in the game. He joins Andre Ethier of the Dodgers in 2006, Travis Hafner of the Cleveland Indians in 2003. Roberto Meija of the Colorado Rockies and Craig Paquette of the Oakland A’s also in 1993.

Panik made his professional debut at first base, as he started the game at first base and it was the first time that Panik started there on the minor league or the Major League level.

UP NEXT: The Giants and Cards wrap up their series Sunday at 11:15 am PDT.

Andrew Suarez puts an end to the road trip and the Giants 2018 road schedule, as he takes the Busch Stadium mound for the first time in his Major League career, while Mike Mikolas takes the mound for the Cards.