Cardinals completing a season opening sweep.
Game Result
Cardinals win 9-2. The offense erupts with two 3-run HR’s (Pages and Scott) and a solo shot by Gorman. The strong offense backs a now typical Andre Pallante ground ball laden 5-inning outing before a rain delay ended his day, coupled with Steven Matz’ sharp 4-inning season debut to close out the win.
Pre-game Notes
- Forecast is for a stormy day at Busch today.
- Cards go for opening series sweep. By my count, the Cardinals played for a three-game sweep nine times last year, going 2-7. Randomly, the Orioles were one of their sweeps.
- Picked up these tidbits from an AP report by Ronald Blum. In Spring Training, batters won exactly 50% of their 596 challenges, catchers success rate was 56% and pitchers’ rate was 41% (not shocking). The batter requested reviews at about 2.5 times the rate the defense did, covering 4.4% of all pitches. During the 2024 regular season, 10.9% of called pitches in the strike zone were ruled balls and 6.3% of called pitches outside of the strike zone were ruled strikes, according to MLB Statcast. Does that mean the MLB average correct ball/srike call rate is 82.8%?
Line-up (and roster) Machinations
- Pallante takes the mound for the Cardinals in the third spot in the rotation. Ober for the Twins. High K rate guy. Stands 6’9”.
- Alternate line-up today. Mostly a defensive shuffle. Contreras to DH. Donovan to LF. Nootbar to RF. Pages in for Herrera at C. Gorman in at 2B, replaces Walker in line-up. Walker got hit in hand yesterday.
- Hence to minor league 60-day IL. That opens up a spot on the Memphis 33-man roster. Rib cage strain. Those hurt. Bet coughing brings him to his knees. Unlike a lat, I believe a rib cage strain involves an accessory breathing muscle pulling partially or fully off a rib bone. Because you can’t really rest it, it can be a long healing process.
- I’m guessing Maton might be down today, having pitched in first 2 games of the series. Matz has yet to see action.
The Game
An inning-by-inning breakdown, with score card entries and observations along the way.
T1 – Pallante recovers from a quick 0-2 count to walk the lead-off hitter. A slow ground ball advances runner to second. A single to left scores the run, and an ill-advised throw home from Donny advances the batter to second. Two more soft ground outs end the inning. AP’s velo looks good. Lots of 96 mph pitches already on the board. Twins up 1-0.
B1 – Nootbar leads off with a walk. Contreras zips 109 mph right at Bader. Donovan walks. A WP advances runners to 2nd and 3rd. Arenado K’s and Burly fouls out to end the threat. That took Ober 28 pitches to finish, even with a slightly generous K zone.
T2 – 6-3. Followed by 1-4-3. Good play by both Gorman and Burly to get that out on a deflected ball. 5-3 ends the inning. AP has his ground ball game working.
B2 – Gorman singles. Pages raps a ground rule double at 108 mph. Scott follows with 3-run homer, out in all 30 ballparks. Winn K. Nootbar with a 110-mph missile that ends up 4-3. Contreras pops to right. Cards now up 3-1.
T3 – The ground ball parade continues. 6-3 to lead off. A Wellner double ends AP’s streak at 7 in a row. AP complicates with a walk to Correa, but K’s Buxton and induces another 6-3 to quell the threat.
B3 – Donovan singles. Arenado raps a double. Burly bangs a 2-run double off the RF wall that would’ve been out at 15 other venues. Ober really not fooling anyone. He’s only gotten 6 outs and two of those were 105+. Gorman another hit. Pages smokes a 3-run HR and the rout is on. Those new bat lathes really work!!! Oh, wait…Scott pops to LF. Winn K’s again. Nootbar walks. Ober’s day is ober. Dobnak in. Contreras lines out to end the run parade. Cards now up 8-1.
T4 – Pallante’s 4-seamer has been charged today, touching 97. His command of it isn’t great, but it is really setting up his other pitches (sinker, knuckle curve, slider). Puts a little swing-and-miss in his game today. 7 of them so far, which seems high for him. F8. 6-3 again. AP keeping Masyn busy today. Solo HR Castro on an 0-2 hanging curve. Single. 5-3 ends the inning. AP at 65 pitches. Velo starting to backslide now. He might have one more inning, but it will be 3rd time through the order. Beware! Cards up 8-2.
B4 – Donovan K. Arenado walks. Burly GIDP to end the inning. May be a blessing in disguise. Weather approaching, need 3 more outs to make it a regulation game.
T5 – AP remains in. Lead-off K. 6-3. Again! K finishes the inning. He ends up with 13 swings and misses in 5 innings. Cards still up 8-2.
Good thing the game is official. A weather delay is declared. Wind is up, rain has yet to settle in, but it’s coming. Now it is here. During the rain delay, I notice Milwaukie got smoked again by NYY. Is it really two complementary players using fungo bats that did this?
And now the rain is gone, time to play again.
B5 – After resumption, Dobnak remains on the mound for the Twins. Their bullpen may leave STL a bit stressed already. Gorman flies to left. Pages with sharp single. Scott with an even sharper single, so sharp that Pages had to hold up to make sure it got through and he ended up forced out at second. Exit velos here have been 99, 105 and 105. Scott steals 2nd. Winn walks. A good sign? Nootbar flies out to end the inning.
T6 – Matz takes the mound in relief of AP. This could end up looking like a piggy-back start for him. Cards need to clear 4 innings, and he has a six-run cushion to work with. He starts with a K. 4-3. Then 6-3 (again!). Cards remain up 8-2.
B6 – Contreras lines out. Donovan grounds out. Arenado grounds out, also.
T7 – Castro doubles to lead-off. Then a K. A WP advances the runner to third. F9, too short to score a run. Pop out to third ends the inning.
B7 – Dobnak remains in the game. His pitch count is headed into the 60’s. Burleson grounds out. Gorman with a solo HR! Pages ground out in his attempt to hit for the cycle. Cardinals now up 9-2.
T8 – Matz back out for his third inning. 5-3 to start. Correa 0-11 for the series. Buxton out 4-3. Matz’ sinker still running at 95 mph. Looking sharp. Pop out to third makes quick work of this inning.
B8 – Dobnak back out. Looks like they will try to get 5+ innings out of this one reliever to save the bullpen for the next series. Winn pops out. Nootbar lines out. 112. That is twice today he is 110 mph without anything to show. Contreras blisters one into your typical 1-2-3 putout. His was a mere 109.2. That makes 15 balls hit > 100 mph today.
T9 – Matz stays in, qualifies for the save here. Noot moves to left, Donovan to 2b, Gorman to 3b, Scott to RF. Siani replaces Arenado, playing RF. As the GOBs have ordered, the baseball finds the new guy (Siani) who is up to the task with a knuckler hit right at him. Then the next ball finds the new second baseman, who makes a diving stop for the 4-3. Matz velo holding in his fourth inning, still 95. Pop out to short ends the game. Cards win 9-2.
Post-game Notes
- McGreevy and Mathews were … not great … in their opening starts at Memphis this weekend. Then Graceffo got shelled today. Not much offense from this group, either. Other affiliates open Friday, Apr 4.
- I’m beginning to wonder if Pages will play 162 games.
- Winn and Contreras not hitting well out of gate. Those are two guys I don’t worry about.
- Something I’ve been mulling over researching. I’d like some feedback on this idea. A long while back a VEB writer (JP?) did an analysis of managerial moves in-game, focused on pinch hitting. He id’ed the PH penalty, applied it to left/right match ups. If I remember, a PH appearance has an expectation of between .020 and .030 points reduction of a players OPS (influenced by handedness matchup). This became a statistic that indicated if a PH move had any real potential benefit and then evaluated specific managerial moves against that. If I remember right, inserting a LH hitter against RH pitcher was the only scenario where the platoon advantage regularly overcame the PH penalty. I think that analysis may have been before the DH, even. I was thinking about resurrecting that methodology but applying it to DH selections and perhaps first ABs as a control, as well as the now very limited PH decisions and see if that produces anything interesting. I could write the data queries and perfect them over the summer and do a review at season’s end. Thoughts?