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Tonight in moonball, Michael Wacha (2.18 ERA, 3.56 FIP, 4.01 xFIP) faced off against the Rockies' Jorge De La Rosa (6.15 ERA, 3.77 FIP, 3.65 xFIP).
Tonight's game was delayed for about an hour due to the incessant rainclouds that follow Wacha to every major league venue and weep with joy for each of his starts.
The Game
Wacha made a decided change in his pitching mix tonight, relying more heavily on the change-up. Brooks Baseball shows that he went with 68 fastballs, 23 change-ups, 6 curves, and 7 cutters. Compare this to his previous game in LA where he threw just 10 changes but 24 cutters.
The Birdos were blanked through the first 4 innings. Randal Grichuk broke up the no-hitter in the 5th, was replaced on the bases by Jon Jay via fielder's choice, and Peter Bourjos drove Jay home for a 1-0 Cardinals lead.
Jhonny Peralta added on with a bomb of an opposite field home run for a 2-0 advantage.
Per @Statcast, 106 MPH and 436 feet on that opposite-field home run by Jhonny Peralta. 2-0 #STLCards.
— viva el birdos (@vivaelbirdos) June 10, 2015
Unfortunately, Nolan Arenado tied things back up with a 2-run shot of his own.
In the 7th, DJ LeMahieu doubled home Wilin Rosario to put the Rox ahead, 3-2. That was the end of Wacha's night, possibly a batter or four too late. Randy Choate allowed a run scoring single to Carlos Gonzalez that bumped the score to 4-2. Seth Maness was able to close out the inning.
Wacha's line: 6.2 IP, 4 ER, 9 H, 1 BB, 10 K, 108 pitches
Bourjos got in on the moonball fun with a solo shot in the 8th that cut the deficit to 4-3. Unfortunately, this inning witnessed an event even rarer than a Peter Bourjos dinger:
That's a career-high four strikeouts for Matt Carpenter. He had previous had two 3K games this season vs. Mets?src=hash">#Mets, Indians?src=hash">#Indians. #cardinals
— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) June 10, 2015
The Galveston Grinder is struggling a bit right now. He has 1 hit so far in this road trip, a double in the first game in LA.
Matt Belisle was brought in for the 8th. He walked Ben Paulsen, then struck out Michael McKenry. In a throwback to the ol' telepathy days with Pujols, Yadi then casually picked off Paulsen who wandered off first.
Yadier Molina's 46th career catcher pickoff ties him with Benito Santiago for 4th most all-time. #STLcards
— Tim Trokey (@tim_trokey) June 10, 2015
The Birdos weren't able to muster a run in the 9th and that was that.
Apparently FanGraphs is down, so I'll spare you the graph tonight.
Tomorrow afternoon, the Cardinals try to salvage one game from this series. It'll be Carlos Martinez and Chad Bettis in the Stadium That Gravity Forgot. First pitch should be around 2:10ish Central.