St. Louis Cardinals defeat Chicago Cubs in invisible Saturday game

The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Chicago Cubs 5-1 Saturday, I think. I can't be sure, because the only available film at this date is this Jon Jay home run footage shot inadvertently by Abraham Zapruder, but it looks like it happened. (However many years on, Fox's blackout policy is built on the same absurd misunderstanding of baseball: That its fans can be made to behave like football fans, interested in watching just-any-baseball-game because it happens to be on TV and some famous teams are in it.)

Through two starts Lance Lynn hasn't been perfect (he did give way to five relief pitchers today) but he's been outstanding, in a very noisy, visibly impressive way—it's still strange to me that this Lance Lynn, striking out 13 batters in 12 innings, is the same one who was supposed to stand at the back of the Cardinals' rotation one day, throwing 88 mile-an-hour sinkers until he'd gone six innings and given up three earned runs.

It hasn't just been a gain in velocity—unless he was taking that same sinker up the ladder in Springfield and daring the middle of the order to hit it, he's fundamentally changed his approach to work with his new stuff. Much like Matt Carpenter: Power hitter, through two starts Lance Lynn has looked like he's never done anything else.

At least, I think so. Fox's business model is dependent on me having not seen the second one.