ST. LOUIS — Paul DeJong handed the Washington Nationals their second straight walk-off loss, capping a back-and-forth finish with a game-ending solo homer in the ninth inning of the St. Louis Cardinals’ 7-6 victory Monday night.
DeJong took Koda Glover (0-1) deep leading off the ninth on a 3-1 pitch. A night earlier, Ryan Madson allowed a game-ending ninth-inning grand slam to the Chicago Cubs’ David Bote to end a 4-3 defeat.
Matt Carpenter kicked off a wild ending with a three-run go-ahead homer during a four-run eighth inning for St. Louis. It was Carpenter’s 17th homer during a 31-game on-base streak.
Washington tied it at 6 in the top of the ninth on RBI singles by Daniel Murphy and Matt Wieters off closer Bud Norris. Dakota Hudson (3-0) relieved Norris and stranded two baserunners by retiring Wilmer Difo and Adam Eaton.
Jedd Gyorko sparked St. Louis’ big eighth inning with a homer off Justin Miller. Kolten Wong and Patrick Widsom then singled to set up Carpenter’s 33rd homer. Carpenter has homered in seven of his past 10 games.
Washington’s bullpen has blown saves in three of its past four games. All-Star closer Sean Doolittle has been on the disabled list since early July, and top setup man Kelvin Herrera went to the DL with right rotator cuff impingement last week.
Juan Soto and Bryce Harper homered for Washington, which has lost five of seven.
Harper won a 10-pitch battle with starter Miles Mikolas by drilling his 29th homer leading off the fourth to lead 2-1.
Ryan Zimmerman added a run-scoring double in the second for the Nationals.
Jose Martinez had four hits for the Cardinals.
Mikolas gave up four runs on four hits over seven innings. He struck out four and walked one.
Tommy Milone started for Washington and gave up two runs on 10 hits over 4 1/3 innings.
BAseball with signatures of 11 greats fetches over $600k
LOS ANGELES — How could a baseball artifact possibly top a ball signed by both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig?
How about a ball signed by Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Cy Young, Tris Speaker, George Sisler, Walter Johnson, Connie Mack, Nap Lajoie, Eddie Collins and Pete Alexander, on the day they all entered the Baseball Hall of Fame?
Such a ball just sold for $623,369, SCP auctions said Monday. That crushes the record of $345,000 for a signed baseball, set in 2013 for a Ruth-Gehrig ball.
The seller was not identified, and the winner who outbid 28 other prospective buyers for the ball was identified only as a Southern California collector.
The only living original inductee who didn’t sign the ball was Lou Gehrig, who on that day was headed to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota where he’d be diagnosed with ALS, the disease that would end his career, take his life and unofficially bear his name.
It was on June 12, 1939, that the Baseball Hall of Fame first opened its doors, though it had been choosing members for three years by then. Most were already dead.
Marv Owen, a star third baseman for the Detroit Tigers who was there to play in an exhibition marking the occasion, recognized the moment’s significance and brought two balls that he had the 11 men sign — one for himself, and one for his former teammate Hank Greenberg.
“With autographed balls, very few can you trace to the point of origin, the point of signing, where you know the circumstances of where it was acquired,” said Dan Imler, vice president of SCP Auctions. “It’s incredible. It almost puts you in that moment, which is very, very rare for a ball.”
Several signed balls have survived from that day, but most have signatures from other players or dignitaries that diminish their value.
The names weren’t haphazardly scrawled all over the ball, either. It was as though Owen had future collectors in mind when he collected the signatures in dark, lasting ink. And their placement doesn’t seem random either. On one panel of the ball, stacked atop each other, are Cobb, Ruth and Wagner, at the time considered the three greatest players of all time, with Walter Johnson, then considered the greatest pitcher of all time, hovering above them.
“Ultimately that panel of Cobb, Ruth, Wagner is what puts it over the top,” said Kevin Keating of Professional Sports Authenticator, who verified the ball’s legitimacy. “Those are the elite of the elite. The fact that he got those guys the way he did, in that perfect order on one panel, it’s almost as if it’s by design.”
Owen put his ball in a safe-deposit box, and his family kept it until 1997, when it sold for $55,000.
Greenberg’s ball has been lost to history.
