You know it’s a good night when you begin your major league pitching career by getting an at-bat before you even take the mound.

And it definitely was a good night — actually, a great night — for Tyler Lyons in his debut last night as the Cardinals beat the Padres 5-3.

Thanks to a lead-off walk to Matt Carpenter, an RBI triple to right for Matt Holliday, an RBI single by Allen Craig and an RBI double by Daniel Descalso, the Cardinals were leading 3-0 when Lyons strode to the plate in the top of the first inning. There were two outs, the bases were loaded and it would have been a true fairy-tale moment if that 2-1 fly ball to left had dropped in for a hit instead of into Jesus Guzman’s glove.

It didn’t … then.

In the sixth inning, again up with two outs but the bases empty, the liner to left was a base hit — take a look.

Also a hit, in a different sense of the word? Lyons pitching. Seven innings, four hits, one run on a homer to Jedd Gyorko in the seventh, one walk, four strikeouts.

» Continue reading “Tyler Lyons: Another Rookie Starter, Another Successful Debut”

Two of the most storied English Premier League clubs, Chelsea and Manchester City, will be in St. Louis this week for a historic exhibition match at Busch Stadium tomorrow. Kickoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Central Time.

This will be the first international soccer match at Busch Stadium, as well as the first non-baseball sporting event at the ballpark that opened in downtown St. Louis in April 2006.

Following is a schedule of official activities and information to help you enjoy international soccer in St. Louis. You also can join the social media conversation on Twitter with #socceratbusch.

Ticket Availability

Thursday’s match is sold out, but you can check  cardinals.com/soccer as tickets may be made available up until game time.

Tickets to Chelsea’s training session tonight are available for $20 at cardinals.com/soccer, the Busch Stadium box office and by phone at 314-345-9500. The public training event includes a free concert by indie rock band Cracker, fireworks and a unique crossbar soccer challenge that will end with one fan in attendance winning a trip for two to travel to England next year to see Chelsea play at home.

» Continue reading “Going To The Soccer Match At Busch Stadium?”

West Coast games are brutal. I find myself hoping the games are over before midnight my time, but more often than not falling asleep no matter how invested I am in the game.

Last night was similar, except for the fact that I did stay awake. And, I much prefer listening to a game like that than the one the night before (… of which I only heard about six innings!).

Still, the hour the game finished and the hour I needed to be up this morning didn’t agree much with one another, so we’re going to make this a very visual recap. Here, in .gif-form, is how I made my way through last night’s game.

This is me, trying to watch West Coast games. So … sleepy … must … cheer … on … Cards …

» Continue reading “Cards Bounce Back In Late-Night Winner Over Padres”

NOTE: Have you subscribed to The Cardinals Bird’s Eye View, the series preview email newsletter produced by the United Cardinal Bloggers? Here’s the latest edition, previewing the Padres series that begins tonight — coincidentally, I wrote it. Receive your own Bird’s Eye View before each series by clicking here.

The Series
St. Louis Cardinals (28-15) at San Diego Padres (20-23)
May 20-22
Petco Park, San Diego

How We Got Here
This is the first series of 2013 between these two teams, who split their six games last year. Each team swept their home series: the Cardinals did the honors in St. Louis last May 21-23, while San Diego returned the favor Sept. 10-12 (which caused just a little bit of angst at the time, which I remembered when looking to see what I blogged about then).

As for this season, the Cardinals travel back to the West Coast after going 7-3 on a productive home stand — they lost just one game in each series to the Rockies, Mets and Brewers. They are 13-4 in May, have the best record in the National League, keep jockeying with the Texas Rangers for the best record in the majors (they are 29-15 today) and currently lead the NL Central by 2 1/2 games over both the Pirates and Reds. All of this, of course, with the injuries that have occurred and, though now settled down, the bullpen blowups of a few weeks ago. Oh, and the roller coaster hitting.

After a 10-16 April, the Padres are 10-7 in May and inching toward .500 for the first time in 2013. They just split a four-game series with the Washington Nationals in San Diego, including a 13-4 win yesterday in which they scored seven earned runs off Dan Haren. The Padres are currently in fourth place in the NL West, 4 1/2 games behind the Arizona Diamondbacks in first and 3 1/2 behind the Colorado Rockies and San Francisco Giants, who are tied for second.

» Continue reading “The Cardinals Bird’s Eye View: Hello, San Diego”

Kind of appropriate on the official High Sock Sunday, where those ages 15 and under received their own St. Louis Cardinals high socks, that the Cardinals kid pitchers were the biggest contributors — even if, unlike most of their teammates and manager, they weren’t wearing high socks.

Photo: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

But their long pants and (presumably) regular (though unseen) socks helped John Gast and Seth Maness carry the Cardinals to a 4-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday.

The win took the series for the Cards also, plus pushed the Brewers to 10 1/2 games back in last place of the National League Central.

Cardinals starters continue to maintain the best ERA in the majors, now at 2.63. Thanks to the bullpen makeover that brought Maness to the majors a couple weeks ago, the bullpen ERA is improving also — it’s now 4.55. Combined, the Cardinals lead the majors in ERA at 3.16.

The Cardinals rookie pitchers also seem to lead the league in ticking off former Cardinal and now Brewer Kyle Lohse, who was the losing pitcher yesterday and has lost three times to the Cards this season — twice to Shelby Miller and now to Gast.

» Continue reading “Cardinals Kids Pitchers Come Through In Win”

There’s news about Jaime Garcia following his start last night — and it’s not good.

From Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Cardinals lefthander Jaime Garcia appeared to be a different pitcher in his last three innings Friday night, rather than his first three, when he pitched perfect baseball against the Milwaukee Brewers.

It turns out Garcia, who allowed a total of six runs in the fourth and sixth innings, courtesy of two Aramis Ramirez home runs, was hurt.

Garcia said that there were times when he thought about asking out of the game because the pain was so intense.

Goold also reports that Garcia will be placed on the 15-day disabled list tomorrow morning, with Mitchell Boggs being recalled from Triple A Memphis to replace him on the roster.

Garcia had an MRI this morning, and will visit Dr. James Andrews “in the coming days,” according to Goold. As we all recall, Garcia had shoulder trouble last season.

Garcia insisted last year that the team allow him to take a rehab approach instead of going for surgery. Having now attempted to rehab the shoulder without surgery, the surgical repair is back in the discussion and may be the most likely outcome at this point.

That certainly looks like it will be the case.

At Memphis, Boggs pitched 5 1/3 innings and allowed three earned runs on five hits with five walks and four strikeouts. His ERA was 5.06.

With his return to St. Louis, that obviously means someone else will be taking Garcia’s spot in the rotation. Joe Kelly? Seth Maness? Carlos Martinez? And, looking down the road and depending on how things go in his own recovery, Chris Carpenter?

All is finally right in the 2013 St. Louis Cardinals baseball world.

Yes, first place and again having the best record in the majors this morning and terrific starting pitching are all perfectly wonderful. But still, something very important was missing.

Photo: St. Louis Post-Dispatch

No more.

David Freese has finally hit his first home run.

And, just to make sure everyone really paid attention, he hit a grand slam.

Although the description on the Cards website to go along with the video is much more descriptive: “David Freese unloads on a Wily Peralta pitch for a majestic grand slam to straightaway center, opening up an early 5-0 lead.”

Watch and experience the majesty.

It really is a good thing that Matt Holliday singled, Allen Craig walked and Yadier Molina singled to all be on base when Freese stepped to the plate though — as Jaime Garcia needed all those runs, plus the two Holliday drove in and the one Jon Jay drove in for seven Cards runs overall since he gave up two three-run homers to Aramis Ramirez for six Brewers runs.

Uh, Jaime? Yikes.

» Continue reading “Cardinals Win! Freese Finally Homers!”

We know the 2013 St. Louis Cardinals are good — they have the best record in the National League this morning and lately have jockeyed back and forth with the Texas Rangers for the best record in the majors. So when they do lose, which has only happened 14 times in 40 games, it’s interesting.

They’ve only had losing “streaks” twice this season — back-to-back defeats on April 3 and 5 to the Diamondbacks and Giants, then three in a row April 27-29 to the Pirates and Reds. (I was there for the two Pirates losses. Sorry, my fault.)

And, as Jenifer Langosch reported in recapping yesterday’s Cardinals 5-2 loss to the New York Mets,

The Cardinals have lost the past four games in which a left-hander has started against them. Those four starters combined to allow three earned runs in 28 innings. In the same span, St. Louis has gone 12-1 and scored 46 runs against right-handed starters.

The discrepancy is evident in the team batting average, as well. Through a quarter of the season, the Cardinals are batting 50 points higher against right-handers (.275) than they are against lefties (.225).

Those four games against lefties have included the three most recent losses — yesterday to Jon Niese, on Mother’s Day to Jorge De La Rosa of the Rockies, May 8 to the Cubs and Travis Wood and April 28 to Jeff Locke and the Pirates.

But what about the other Cardinals losses — do they hit better but still lose against righties?

Not really. The Cardinals are hitting .191/.257/.283 in games lost by the team, which is 13th out of the 15 teams in the National League. (Behind them: the Nationals, with the Braves last.) By contrast, when they win, they hit extremely well — .302/.365/.445, which is second-best in the NL behind the Rockies. So while the Cards starting pitching has obviously been tremendous, the hitting has been pretty good in those victories as well.

Now, granted, those stats in the Cardinals losses are only based on 14 games compared to 26 games for the wins. Of the 14 losses, three have been shutouts. The most they’ve scored in a loss is nine runs, in that insane 16-inning 10-9 loss to the Diamondbacks back on April 3 (which you can relive via haiku if you so choose).

What about the other side — how is the Cardinals pitching in the games that they lose? Well, duh, of course it’s going to be worse than when they win. But their ERA in losses is 5.46 and opponents are hitting .307 against them, compared to an ERA of 1.81 and an opponents’ batting average of .205 in victories.

Granted, those stats take into account games we don’t want to remember with the bullpen issues — Mitchell Boggs has two losses this season, as does Fernando Salas, and Joe Kelly has one. The rest of the losses are from the starters: Adam Wainwright now has three after yesterday, Jaime Garcia and Shelby Miller each have two, and Lance Lynn and Jake Westbrook one each.

But, all in all, still impressive when you look at the number of losses other team’s starters have — Cole Hamels has six, Edwin Jackson and Jeff Samardzija have five each as do Stephen Strasburg and Kris Medlen.

If you’re wondering how the Cardinals do in games following one of their losses this season, we should feel fairly optimistic about today. Their record is 10-3, the team ERA is an NL-best 2.48 and they’re hitting .252/.326/.358.

Plus, even more encouragingly, today is Friday. The Cards are 4-2 on this day, have a team ERA of 1.08 and are hitting .266/.327/.451. Matt Holliday especially likes Fridays, as he’s hitting .421/.542./737 with two homers. Carlos Beltran has five Friday homers. And we’ll just overlook the Friday pitching stats … other than to say it’s obviously an extremely small sample size when it comes tonight’s starter.

Who, of course, is Jaime Garcia and he will be facing the last-place Milwaukee Brewers and Wily Peralta. The Brewers just lost three straight to the Pirates and have only won two of their last 10. Game time is 7:15 p.m. Central at Busch Stadium.



Christine Coleman is the lead St. Louis Cardinals reporter for Aaron Miles’ Fastball. Follow her on Twitter, @CColeman802, or email aaronmilesfastball@gmail.com. Also follow @AMilesFastball for the latest updates.

Say what you will about Ty Wigginton. (Most of you have said plenty.)

But for the second time in three games, Wigginton was directly involved in what ended up the game-winning play as the St. Louis Cardinals again beat the New York Mets by a score of 4-2.

And this time he did nothing but stand there.

Yes, it’s from his days on the Pirates, but somehow it still works …

A wild pitch by Mets reliever Scott Rice while Wigginton was pinch-hitting for Matt Adams, who’d been announced as the pinch-hitter for Seth Maness, allowed Daniel Descalso to race home from third to put the Cardinals up 3-2. Wigginton was then intentionally walked to bring Matt Carpenter to the plate.

Maybe Lance Berkman left a little bit of magic behind in that No. 12 jersey.

Or maybe the Cardinals are just on such a roll right now that everything is going their way.

Whatever works!

And things are definitely working — the Cardinals have won 12 of their last 14 games, are 11-2 this month and have the best record in the majors.

Perhaps that is all because of Ty Wigginton’s mere presence …

(Or not.)

» Continue reading “Wigginton Comes Through Again For The Cardinals – Really!”

John Gast (Screen Shot)

It was a spectacular start to the major league career of John Gast. It was even more spectacular that he got plenty of run support in his debut! The Cardinals defeated the Mets 10-4 Tuesday night.

First off, let’s discuss this smooth lefty!

The first Mets batter Gast faced, Justin Turner, was thrown three pitches. All three pitches were strikes. Poor Justin didn’t know what was going on, it seemed!

The amazing start continued from there for Gast.

He threw 71 pitches over the course of six innings. Of the 71, 48 of those pitches were strikes. He threw three strikeouts.

Gast did give up six hits, a walk and had four earned runs thanks to some struggles in the sixth. According to Jenifer Langosch of MLB.com, “Gast did stumble in the sixth, allowing three straight batters to reach with one out. A botched rundown later extended the inning long enough for Marlon Byrd to connect for a two-run homer. But maintaining his poise, Gast closed his outing with a strikeout — the same result with which he had opened his night.”

Langosch also reported Gast was “[t]he first Cardinals left-hander to make his debut as a starter since Rick Ankiel in 1999. Gast is now the first lefty starter to win a debut since Allen Watson in 2002. Asked how the long-time dream measured up to reality, Gast answered: “It was pretty close.”‘

Very exciting for the 24-year-old. I know I am far from alone in looking forward to more great starts from this guy! » Continue reading “Gast Hot In MLB Debut”