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St. Louis Cardinals: A Cardinals Loss, Not a Reds Win
I am furious and dumbfounded. I just sat through one of the most frustrating back-and-forth St. Louis Cardinals game of my entire life.
I blame Mike Matheny. There I said it. I also blame a terribly inconsistent 2016 St. Louis Cardinals team. I usually try to find the positive- and there certainly were positive elements of tonight’s game- but I’m just too sick of Matheny’s bromance with particular players and his inability to manage during the game.
Here’s the quick-and-dirty from tonight’s game: the St. Louis Cardinals took an early lead on an amazing Yadier Molina home run only to give it back with two runs in the following half inning. The back-and-forth continued thanks to Mike Leake having difficulty with the zone and allowing a runner in each of the innings he pitched.
Another great moment from tonight came in the bottom of the fifth when Matt Holliday single-handedly (honestly, he smashed the ball with only one hand on the bat) blasted the tying home run. The Reds picked up another run in the top of the seventh to put the Cardinals on the ropes again.
Before moving on, let me interject here that this was one of the initial mistakes of Matheny. Going into the bottom of the sixth inning, Matheny had Zach Duke start to warmup then, without warning, Kevin Siegrist was inserted in the game for the top of the seventh to surrender the go-ahead run. Mistake!
Lucky for Matheny, the Cardinals came back to pick up the run in the bottom of the seventh and a new ballgame begins.
Not necessarily Matheny’s fault, the bullpen again dropped the ball. In the top of the eighth inning, Matt Bowman (entering with a 1-3 record) surrendered three- yes three- runs to the reds. Boy did that stink!
A quiet Cardinals team was witnessed yet again in the bottom of the eighth. That said, Busch Stadium came to life when Alexander Reyes– the young phenom having just been called up to the St. Louis Cardinals- was caught warming-up to make his MLB debut.
Of all the decisions Matheny made tonight, I agreed with only one: allowing Reyes to make his debut in a low-stress situation in a game already lost. Reyes was everything as advertised and sent three batters immediately back to the dugout having to face several 95+ MPH pitches. Good for you, young arm!
That joy stated, Matheny then allowed Matt Adams to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning. Matt Adams?!?! Really? Down three runs and Matheny sends up a not-lead-off batter to start an attempted come-back?! Bone-headed! Adams did was Adams does and weakly popped-out.
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Why Adams? Why not Jeremy Hazelbaker (a player who has and can lead-off)? Was Matheny scared that he would need an emergency outfielder? If that was the case, even if Hazelbaker had lead-off, couldn’t he have moved Brandon Moss to the outfield since he would have still had Adams on the bench? See my frustration?
The St. Louis Cardinals- I’ll get to the chase here- went quietly through their half inning and lost 7-4 thanks to Matt Bowman and Kevin Siegrist and a rare error by Matt Carpenter (accounted for one of the three runs surrendered by Bowman) and flawed managing by Mike Matheny. Enough already, right?
All that said, let me add this: tonight’s game was NOT a Cincinnati win but rather a St. Louis Cardinals loss. A clear loss, not an earned win (and I don’t mean that to take away from anything the Reds did).
Next: Crucial Series Against Reds
Frustrations aside, I was able to meet one of my favorite St. Louis Cardinals players tonight: Aaron Miles. This was a dream-come-true and I will publish a recap of this outstanding portion of tonight’s game tomorrow so please look for it. It really was something. A quick teaser: he has read my writing on THIS blog!