The St. Louis Cardinals are 0-2 on the year but have had the tough task of taking on the Los Angeles Dodgers who have as deep of a lineup as any team in the MLB. They lost the season opener 7-1 and last night lost again 6-3 at Dodgers Stadium. They had to face Tyler Glasnow and then young stud Bobby Miller who was lights out striking out 11 Cardinals on his way to victory. The Cardinals rolled out Mike Mikolas and Zack Thompson for the first two games of the series. Tonight Lance Lynn will go up against Yoshinobu Yamamoto the free agent from Japan. They wrap up the four-game set with Steve Matz going against Gavin Stone. Below are some takeaways from the first two games of the series.
The future is bright at Short
Masyn Winn is getting his first opportunity to be the man at Short for the Cardinals this season. Winn played in 37 games last year for the Cardinals he had two doubles, two home runs, 12 RBIs, two steals, and slashed .172/.230/.238 with a .468 OPS on the year. Heading into this season his bat was of concern given the small sample size from last year. In the season opener, Winn hit from the 9th hole and went 0-3 on the day. Last night he again was in the nine-hole, but went 2-3 with a run scored on the game. While as a team the Cardinals struck out 14 times, Winn was not one of them. As good as he was at the plate last night, in the field is where he shined to me. The Kid made a diving stop to his right then fired a fastball across the diamond to first to get the runner. Later he again displayed his arm strength when he completed a 4-6-3 double play. Winn has one of the best arms at short that I have seen in a long time. His range combined with his arm makes him a special talent defensively for the Cardinals.
Starting Rotation
It’s been two games only, but this is not the way the Cardinals wanted to start the season off, of course, they had hoped that Sonny Gray was going to get the opening day start, but he is currently on the IL with a hamstring issue. So Mike Mikolas took the ball in the game and only went 4.1 innings before getting the hook. He gave up seven hits, and five runs, walked two, struck out five, and two of the five hits were home runs. He only threw 78 pitches on the day, but only 49 of them were for strikes. Control was an issue in the game, but with this lineup trying to work on the edges of the plate seemed a struggle. Zack Thompson got the ball in game two and got the loss going 5.1 innings. He gave up six hits, five runs, two walks, and struck out four. The issue was that of those six hits, four of them left the yard. In two game games the Cardinals starting rotation has given up six home runs of the 13 hits total for the starters. This is a scary stat even in two games. Hopefully, today and tomorrow Lynn and Matz can keep the ball in the yard, if not this lineup is going to struggle to produce enough runs to out-pace the opponents.
Veteran Bat
Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado are two players the Cardinals desperately need to produce this season offensively if they plan to not repeat last year’s pathetic record finishing 20 games below .500. So far this year Nolan is 0-7 but has yet to strikeout. Goldschmidt on the other hand has three hits, two runs scored, one home run, one RBI, two walks, struck out twice, and is slashing .500/.625/1.000 with a 1.625 OPS on the young season. Goldschmidt is off to a good start and even though Nolan has yet to get on base he is making contact I expect a two-hit game from him tonight against the Dodgers.
Wrap Up
Facing the Dodgers to start the year with a depleted lineup missing Lars Nootbaar, Tommy Edman and even Dylan Carlson is not how the Cardinals wanted to kick off the year by any means. Nor did they want to roll into the season without prize offseason acquisition free agent pitcher Sonny Gray. Forget the first two games, if the team can somehow leave Dodgers Stadium Sunday night splitting the series, that would be a huge win for this ball club to start the season. Especially knowing reinforcements are on the way before they get too far along in the year. If the Pitchers can limit the long ball and the lineup can limit the strikeouts, this team will be ok. Watch Lance Lynn tonight take the mound for the Cardinals in the third game of the series.
