Louis Cardinals held off the Washington Nationals 7-6 on Wednesday night.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For struggling Matt Adams Kyle Hendricks Jersey , a return to Nationals Park was the perfect tonic.Adams homered twice against his former team who traded him last month, Marcell Ozuna tied his career-high with four hits and the St. One night after bashing five homers against Washington, St. Louis settled for three in the rubber game of the series as Yairo Munoz had a solo shot in the sixth.Adams victimized Tanner Roark with first-pitch homers on a curveball in the first inning and a changeup in the fifth.“I’ve always seen the ball well in this ballpark,” Adams said. “I’m ready for his fastball. He has a good feel for that two-seamer, and I saw the curveball up and I saw the changeup up.”Miles Mikolas (14-4) worked 6 2/3 innings and was charged with four runs on 12 hits. Carlos Martinez worked the final two innings for his first save since 2014, getting three straight outs in the ninth after the first two batters reached.“He was clearly sharp in the eighth. He was pretty dominant again in the ninth, too,” manager Mike Shildt said. “A couple balls fell in . and he didn’t waver. He just went right at it and made some quality big-league pitches to bring it home.”Ryan Zimmerman’s three-run double followed by Wilmer Difo’s RBI single pulled Washington within 7-6 in the seventh.Bryce Harper had three hits for Washington on a day when general manager Mike Rizzo responded that he hasn’t considered any other scenario when asked if manager Dave Martinez will return in 2019.Adams was signed by the Nationals in the offseason. The former Cardinal hit .258 with 18 homers for Washington and was traded back to St. Louis on Aug. 21, the same day Daniel Murphy was dealt to the Cubs.Tuesday’s homers were Adams’ first since the trade. He came into the game 3 for 23 with the Cardinals.“The home runs have really killed us,” Martinez said. “I look back, and we’re giving up way too many homers. We have to figure that out. We really do.”Roark (8-15) was a loser for the third straight start. He gave up six runs on 10 hits over five innings.It took the Cardinals just seven pitches to take a 3-0 lead. Following a pair of singles, Adams homered.Fielding problems helped the Cardinals expand their lead in the second. With two outs, third baseman Anthony Rendon had trouble getting a Mikolas bouncer out of his glove. Then Matt Carpenter launched a flyball to the warning track in center that Harper lost sight of in the twilight for an RBI double.Carpenter later scored to make it 5-0.Adams struck again in fifth, hitting a solo shot into the back of the second deck.“Like I’ve said a million times http://www.chicagocubsteamshop.com/authentic-mike-montgomery-jersey , if you don’t make your pitch, they hit it far,” Roark said. “And so he did it twice.”BRYCE BALLHarper has reached base safely in 14 of his last 20 plate appearances. During this stretch he has eight walks, six hits and five RBIs.TRAINER’S ROOMCardinals: C Yadier Molina left in the eighth inning with left hamstring tightness. Shildt said Molina told him, “I’ll be fine.” … 2B Kolten Wong (left hamstring strain) was activated from the 10-day disabled list after missing nine games. Shildt said Wong was available Wednesday in a limited capacity. . OF Harrison Bader started a night after fouling a ball off his ankle. “I said after the game ‘How are you feeling?'” Shildt said. “He said, ‘Five ounces can’t hurt me’ — the weight of a baseball.”Nationals: LHP Sean Doolittle (left toe inflammation) threw another simulated game Wednesday. “He felt a lot better today than he did the previous game,” Martinez said. “Hopefully he’ll be back for the weekend.”UP NEXTCardinals: LHP Austin Gomber (5-0, 2.77 ERA) starts Friday at Detroit as St. Louis begins its final interleague series of the season.Nationals: RHP Stephen Strasburg (7-7, 4.09) starts the opener of a four-game series against the visiting Chicago Cubs. Strasburg is 2-2 with a 2.56 ERA in six career starts versus the Cubs. MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Joe Mauer is retiring after 15 major league seasons, six All-Star games, three Gold Glove awards, three batting titles and 2,123 career hits, all with his hometown Minnesota Twins.“Thank you Ian Happ Jersey , Minnesota Twins, and thank you, fans, for making my career as special and memorable as it was,” Mauer wrote in a full-page ad that will run Sunday in the Minneapolis Star Tribune and St. Paul Pioneer Press. “Because of you I can leave the game I love with a full and grateful heart.”Mauer’s eight-year, $184 million contract expired the day after the World Series ended, creating a natural parting from the game he grew up with in St. Paul, less than 10 miles from the downtown Minneapolis ballparks he called home with the Twins.“The decision came down to my health and my family,” Mauer wrote. “The risk of a concussion is always there, and I was reminded of that this season when I missed 30 games as a result of diving for a foul ball. That’s all it took this time around and it was all I need to bring me back to the struggles I faced in 2013.”The first overall pick in the 2001 draft out of Cretin-Derham Hall High School, the same program that produced Hall of Famer Paul Molitor, Mauer made his debut at the Metrodome on April 5, 2004, two weeks before his 21st birthday. He signed his megadeal three weeks before the Twins began playing at Target Field.Mauer acknowledged down the stretch this season he wasn’t sure yet whether he was interested in continuing to play Jose Quintana Jersey , with twin 5-year-old daughters at home and a third child on the way for him and his wife, Maddie. Then came the final game of the season on Sept. 30, when he doubled in his last at-bat and donned his catcher’s gear to symbolically take one more pitch in the top of the ninth inning as he tearfully waved to the adorning crowd. Not many players could experience a farewell more poignant than that.What made the moment so emotional was the fact that Mauer hadn’t been behind the plate since Aug. 19, 2013, when a foul tip banged off his mask and triggered a concussion that forced him to move to first base“The concussion I experienced that season not only changed my life professionally with a move to first base, but changed me personally as well,” Mauer wrote.While his athleticism — he had a scholarship waiting for him to play quarterback at Florida State and was a sharpshooting guard on the basketball team in high school — allowed for a relatively smooth transition on defense, the effects of the head injury robbed him of his prowess at the plate for most of the next three years.As a catcher, easily the game’s most demanding and dangerous position, Mauer’s offensive ability was Hall of Fame-worthy. In 2006, he became the first catcher to lead the league in batting average since 1942. He did so again in 2008 and in 2009, when he hit .365 with a .444 on-base percentage and a .587 slugging percentage to top the AL in all three categories and win the MVP award. In Mauer’s last 10 games as a catcher before the concussion in 2013, he went 17 for 43 with three doubles, three homers and nine RBIs.Staying healthy became a challenge http://www.chicagocubsteamshop.com/authentic-yu-darvish-jersey , however, and his popularity lessened some in a state usually fiercely proud of homegrown players due to the size of his contract and the amount of his absences.A knee injury limited his rookie season to 35 games, and a strained left quadriceps had him on the disabled list for more than a month in 2007. Back trouble sidelined him for all of April in 2009, when Mauer still managed to hit 28 home runs, by far his career high. In 2011, soreness and weakness in both of his legs kept him out for more than two months.Moving to first base allowed him to play more often, but between 2014 and 2016 his cumulative average was just .267 and the three highest strikeout totals of his career came in each of those seasons.His renaissance came in 2017 as the Twins went from 59-103 to 85-77 and a spot in the AL wild card game, batting .305 with 36 doubles, the second-highest total of his career. That made it easy to see Mauer playing beyond 2018, but in the end he opted to walk away with a .306 batting average and a place in the top five on the team’s career lists in a clear majority of offensive categories. Mauer is their all-time leader in doubles and times on base and second in hits behind Kirby Puckett.