By MATT PIKE
The St. Louis Cardinals had the game tied, but then were unable to overcome a three run rally from the New York Mets as the young rebuilding Redbirds fell 4-2 to the Mets at Busch Stadium in the series opener between the two teams.
New York took the early lead in the first inning after Fransisco Lindor led the game off with a triple, and scored on a ground out to second base by Bo Bichette. St. Louis tied the game in the bottom half though, JJ Wetherholt walking to lead off and advancing to second on a ground out by Iván Herrera, then advancing to third on a balk before scoring on a single from Alec Burleson to knot the game up at 1-1 at the end of one inning.
Cardinals starter Kyle Leahy settled in from there, but in the fifth the Mets broke the tie, Carson Benge singling to lead off the inning and Lindor walking with one out, Benge moving to third as Juan Soto grounded into a force out at second base. With runners on the corners, Bichette drove in his second run of the game, scoring Benge with an RBI single, making it 2-1 at the end of five innings.
In the sixth, Net York extended their lead scoring the final two runs of the game off Leahy. Brett Baty singled to open the inning and scored on a double by Jared Young. Young came home five batters later as Leahy loaded the bases with a walk and hit by pitch, walking Soto to score Young and push the Mets lead to three runs. In the bottom half, the deficit was cut to two as Nolan Gorman homered for the second day in a row, going 419 feet to right center field, to cut the New York lead to 4-2.
The score would remain there however, the Mets giving up just one hit over the next three innings and striking out for Cardinals batters, including striking out the side in order in the seventh inning. Devin Williams notched his first save of the season for New York.
Leahy took the loss, pitching five innings and giving up four runs on eight hits with one strikeout and two walks. At the plate, Burleson was 2-for-4 with a double and an RBI. Gorman was 1-for-4 with the home run and an RBI.
St. Louis and New York continue their series on Tuesday. Andre Pallante is set to make his season debut for the Cardinals against Kodai Senga for the Mets. First pitch is at 6:45pm, pregame will air near the start at 6:35 on KY 102 (102.5FM).
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">GORM 📈 <a href="https://t.co/6zLNbvKGWw">pic.twitter.com/6zLNbvKGWw</a></p>— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) <a href="https://twitter.com/Cardinals/status/2038791653004095709?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 31, 2026</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>