St. Louis Cardinals: Mike Leake Continues to Dominate on the mound

Mike Leake began his St. Louis Cardinals career with a rough first month, but since then has been quietly dominant and Saturday’s outing was no different.

Saturday afternoon the St. Louis Cardinals (23-20) picked up a 6-2 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks (20-25) in St. Louis.

In the win, Mike Leake (3-3) took the mound for the Cardinals and dominated for seven strong innings, holding the Diamondback hitters to only four hits and zero runs while he was on the bump.

This is just the latest development in Leake’s recent streak of quietly dominating performances.

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Mike Leake isn’t the kind of pitcher that is going to run out and get 12 strikeouts for his club, but the performance that Leake produced on Saturday is exactly what the Cardinals’ executives were looking for when they signed the 28-year-old righty.

Leake, who took the mound for the ninth time this season, hasn’t lost in the month of May and has picked up the win in three of those four outings. In the three wins, Leake has allowed only 15 hits combined and a total of two earned runs. This is something that Cardinals’ fans are glad to see after Leake had a rough start to his Redbird career.

April was not a good month for Mike Leake, as he went 0-3 in five starts and the Cardinals only picked up one win when he was the starting pitcher.

The California native finished the month with a sky-high ERA of 5.83 while allowing at least four runs in every start. Since the end of April, Leake’s ERA has fallen to 4.07 and doesn’t look to be stopping there.

Along with Leake’s success on the mound, his bat got a little action today when he smoked a double past the Diamondbacks’ left-fielder Rickie Weeks.

With Leake’s recent success, fans on twitter have started to warm up to the pitcher that will be with the organization through the 2020 season.

Leake even had a little bit to say about the Diamondbacks’ sudden disinterest in his services in the offseason, after they were actively pursuing him.

All that means is that fans will get to see Leake in a St. Louis uniform for five more seasons. If he continues to perform like he did on Saturday, Arizona might regret their decision to let him walk and Cardinals’ fans will be happy to see him take the mound every fifth day.

Next: Quarter-Season Awards

What do you think about Leake’s recent success? Think it’s a flash in the pan? Let me know! You can find me on Twitter @NChill17 or you can hit me up in the comment section below.