WASHINGTON (Interstat) — In a back-and-forth contest that required extra innings, the St. Louis Cardinals outlasted the Washington Nationals 7-6 in 10 innings on Tuesday night at Nationals Park, avenging a loss from the previous evening.

The game, which lasted 3 hours and 23 minutes before a crowd of 20,036, saw the Cardinals squander an early lead, rally to reclaim it, then hold on in the final frame to even their season record at 6-5. The Nationals fell to 4-7.

The decisive sequence came in the top of the 10th inning against Nationals reliever Cole Henry, who took the loss and fell to 0-2. With the automatic runner Masyn Winn starting on second base, Thomas Saggese laced a double to center field to drive him home and break the 5-5 tie. After a groundout moved Saggese to third, JJ Wetherholt delivered a crucial insurance run with a double to right, scoring Saggese.

Those two runs proved vital in the bottom half of the inning. Cardinals reliever George Soriano, who earned the win to move to 1-0 after two scoreless frames, hit Jorbit Vivas with a pitch to begin the inning, putting the tying run on base. Soriano then struck out CJ Abrams before being replaced by Riley O’Brien.

O’Brien induced a soft groundout from Jacob Young, which advanced both runners, but allowed the automatic runner, Daylen Lile, to score, cutting the deficit to 7-6. With the potential winning run now on second base, O’Brien struck out Nasim Nuñez swinging to end the game and secure his third save of the season.

The game’s most critical juncture, however, occurred in the eighth inning and set the stage for the extra-inning drama. Trailing 5-3, the Cardinals mounted a two-out rally against the Washington bullpen. After a walk to Masyn Winn and two quick outs, pinch-hitter Nathan Church, who had entered the game earlier as a defensive replacement, stepped to the plate. On a 1-1 pitch from reliever Gordon Graceffo, Church launched a two-run homer to right field, his first of the season, to tie the game at 5-5. That swing erased a Washington lead that had stood since the fifth inning and ultimately forced the game into extras.

The contest began with both offenses striking quickly. The Cardinals capitalized on a Washington error to plate two runs in the first inning. Wetherholt walked, advanced to third on a single, and scored on a fielding error by shortstop Abrams. Alec Burleson, who had reached on the error, later scored on an RBI single from Nolan Gorman.

Washington answered with a run in the bottom of the first on an RBI single from Daylen Lile, then chipped away further on a solo home run by James Wood, his fourth, in the third inning. The Nationals took their first lead in the fifth against Cardinals starter Matthew Liberatore. Curtis Mead tied the game with a solo homer to center, his first of the year. Later in the inning, with the bases loaded, CJ Abrams singled home Lile to give Washington a 4-3 advantage.

The Nationals extended their lead to 5-3 in the sixth when Mead struck again, driving in Wood with a single. St. Louis immediately responded in the seventh, as Jordan Walker crushed a solo home run, his fourth, to right-center field to pull the Cardinals within a run, setting up Church’s game-tying blast an inning later.

Liberatore finished with a no-decision, working five innings and allowing four earned runs on nine hits while striking out six. His counterpart, Cade Cavalli, was effective for Washington, giving up just one earned run over 4 2/3 innings on four hits.

Beyond the late-inning heroes, key performances included Mead, who went 3 for 4 with a home run, two RBIs and two runs scored for Washington. For St. Louis, Soriano and O’Brien provided three combined innings of hitless, scoreless relief with five strikeouts to seal the victory.

The win allowed St. Louis to split the first two games of the series after dropping the opener 9-6 on Monday. The teams will conclude their three-game set on Wednesday. The Cardinals will then return home to host the Boston Red Sox, while the Nationals embark on a road trip to face the Milwaukee Brewers.

The final combined score of 13 runs went under the pregame over/under line of 7.5. St. Louis entered the game as a slight favorite, a prediction borne out by both the betting line and statistical models, which gave the Cardinals a 53.6 percent probability to win.