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5.22 Cardinals at Royals Recap: Cardinals 0, Kendrys Morales 5

For the second game in a row, the Cardinals are shut out, but this time, against a giant.

By lil_scooter93
Ed Zurga/Getty Images

pre game

Cardinals Lineup:
Kolten Wong 4
Matt Carpenter 5
Matt Holliday 0
Matt Adams 3
Jhonny Peralta 6
Randal Grichuk 7
Yadier Molina 2
Jason Heyward 9
Peter Bourjos 8
Lance Lynn 1

Royals Lineup:
Alcides Escobar 6
Mike Moustakas 5
Lorenzo Cain 8
Eric Hosmer 3
Kendrys Morales 0
Alex Gordon 7
Salvador Perez 2
Omar Infante 4
Paulo Orlando 9
Chris Young 1

game

Baseball is a strange sport. For many years, people have studied it, constantly developing new methods, models, and statistics to gain a further level of understanding, removing the variables causing volatility to make the sport more predictable. And so, after all that, if someone had said Lance Lynn would give up two bombs to Kendrys F*****g Morales, it would be very easy to refute. All one would need to do is go to Fangraphs, see that Lynn surrenders .37 home runs per nine innings and, although Morales is a career .187 isolated power hitter, confidently deduce that would be unlikely.

But not impossible, and such is baseball.

And so we sit here, the Cardinals having suffered a five to zip loss, pondering life's big questions. Why are we here? What went wrong?  Did Edda Moser really bake all those cookies herself? But we don't have those answers. We will never have those answers, and we shouldn't, for we could not handle the awesome knowledge.

Despite giving up five runs in the early going, Lynn was able to pitch six innings, much to everyone's surprise. To be frank, Lynn looked terrible, in fact, he looked worse than terrible, he looked injured and broken. His fastball was only registering 89-91 mph, he could not control his fastball, and he just looked plum uncomfortable. The trainers even went out to check on Lance, concerned about the lack of velocity, but deemed he was able to continue. The whole hullabaloo was very disconcerting and weird to the ignorant television audience.

According to Matheny in the post game interview, Lynn said he felt tightness in his lower back, but did not feel it while he was pitching. Lance said in his own post game interview that he felt his back tighten up in his pregame bullpen and it did not loosen up for the rest of the game. He also said he does not believe it will be a lingering issue and the only way he is coming out of the game is if he cannot walk off.

To be honest, after the second homer by Morales, I started drinking mudslides (plural) and between the sugar and the liquor I do not really remember much from then on. I do know that I danced around my living room at one point. I do know that the Cardinals put a lot of runners on, but could not bring them in. I do know that the Cardinals got a metric crap ton of popups against an actual, real-life giant. And finally, I do know that our heroes were foiled for the second game in row, but it will be okay, I promise.

Stray thoughts:

  • Matt Carpenter got three hits tonight, one being a double, and also walked because he is Matt Carpenter, I mean come on
  • Matt Holliday brought his on-base streak to 39 games
  • Tonight the Cardinals had the #SuperOutfield play the entire game and we didn't even get to see them do anything cool :(((((
  • Come on, this is funny people:

post game

THE DAVID ECKSTEIN HONORAY PEST OF THE GAME AWARD

Kendrys Morales, man. Two homers will about do it.


Source: FanGraphs

Tomorrows our beloved Birdos look to even the series as John Lackey toes the rubber against Edinson Volquez. Tune in at 6:15pm for first pitch!

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