Adell, Grissom Erase Two-Run Deficit in Ninth, Angels Walk Off
Jo Adell was hit by a pitch in the bottom of the ninth to score the winning run, capping a two-run comeback that turned a 2-0 Cardinals lead into a 3-2 Angels victory on July 21. Adell finished 2-for-3 with a home run, 2 RBI, and a run scored — the defining performance of the night on either side.
St. Louis looked like it had this one locked up early. Nathan Church singled to right in the second inning to score Jordan Walker, and Nootbaar came around to score on a groundout, putting the Cardinals up 2-0. Kyle Leahy was doing his part on the mound — 6.0 innings, 3 hits, 1 earned run, zero walks, 4 strikeouts — and the Angels offense was quiet. Then Adell hit a 389-foot home run to left center in the third to make it 2-1, and that's where the score sat for the next six innings. A tight, well-pitched game that felt like it was slipping away from Los Angeles.
Jose Soriano was the story on the Angels' side of the ledger. He went 7.0 innings, allowed 4 hits and 2 earned runs, walked 1, and struck out 7. That's a quality start by any measure, and it kept the Angels close enough to matter. Samy Natera Jr. and Jose Fermin each threw a clean inning of relief — combining for 2.0 innings, no hits, no earned runs, and 4 strikeouts — to bridge the gap to the ninth. The bullpen held the door open. What happened next walked through it.
The ninth inning was the whole game. Vaughn Grissom doubled to right, scoring Peraza and sending Siri to third — a play that survived an umpire review — and just like that it was tied at 2. That double swung the win probability from 33% to 84% in favor of Los Angeles, a 50-point shift that tells you everything about how quickly this one flipped. Two batters later, Adell was hit by a pitch, Siri scored, and the Angels had a 3-2 walk-off win. Grissom finished 1-for-4 with the RBI that started the avalanche; Adell's hit-by-pitch ended it. The story of the night was a Cardinals team that controlled this game for eight-plus innings and then watched it evaporate in about ten pitches. St. Louis got contributions from Church (2-for-3, 1 RBI) and Walker (1-for-3, 1 run), but the offense went silent when it needed one more answer. Los Angeles found two.