Boggs spoils Wacha’s impressive debut

After a one hour rain delay for the St. Louis Cardinals, Michael Wacha headed to the mound for his major league debut. The rookie was impressive in his major league debut.
May 30, 2013; St. Louis, MO, USA; St. Louis Cardinals starting pitcher Michael Wacha (52) throws to a Kansas City Royals batter during the first inning of his major league debut at Busch Stadium. Image Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports
In 7 innings last night, Wacha allowed 2 hits, 1 run, no walks, and struck out 6 batters. He starts off his career with a 1.29 ERA. Against the first 13 batters of his St. Louis career, he was absolutely perfect–13 up, 13 down.

Wacha not only lived up to all the hype but he was just as impressive at the plate, where the pitcher even went 1-3 at the plate.

The game started off as well as it could for the Cardinals with a 2-run first inning. A single by Allen Craig led to a run from Matt Carpenter. A single by David Freese allowed Craig to score. With that single, Freese now has a 10-game hitting streak going. In those 10 games, he has hit 12 for 35 with a .375 batting average. In that time, Freese has raised his average from .211 to .246, closer to where he needs to be.

The run by Carpenter was his team-leading 42nd and has him second in the league to both Joey Votto and Carlos Gonzalez, both of who have 44 runs each.

It was looking like a great night for the Cardinals, even when Wacha allowed a run to score in the 5th inning. It didn’t turn out that way.

Randy Choate and Seth Maness combined to pitch a perfect 8th inning.

With rain on the horizon and Edward Mujica listed as not available for the game against the Royals, manager Mike Matheny had options and who does he turn to but reliever Mitchell Boggs.

It has not been a great year for Boggs and his year is not getting any better. I’m not going to say anything more than needs to be said but management needs to sit down and figure out what they should do with him. Boggs was a terrific 8th inning guy in 2012 but the 2013 season as been anything but kind to him.

In the 9th inning, the Cardinals used 2 pitchers before the rain delay. Boggs allowed 2 hits, 1 run, and 1 walk. As soon as he entered the game, he gave up the game-tying home run to Jeff Francoeur. After walking Gordon with no outs, enough was enough and Victor Marte came in to replace him.

Marte was not all that much better. He hit a batter, allowed a batter to reach on an error, allowed a 2-run double that gave the Royals a cushion, and an intentional walk. Then the rains came…and came…and came.

The game was delayed for 4:32 minutes. A few years back, the game would have been called but MLB had since changed the rules for suspended games but due to the scheduling changes this season, Kansas City is not returning to Busch Stadium–thus the game would be finished.

When the game resumed, Joe Kelly pitched the rest of the inning but the damage had been done.

If Mitchell Boggs is not demoted by the end of the day, the Cardinals have problems. No matter how nice of a guy he is, he is not pitching anywhere close to the level he needs to be pitching at during the 2013 campaign.

In late game situations, Boggs has been horrible, as has been pointed out by Ben Frederickson.