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Last night, Mike Mayers made his debut with the St. Louis Cardinals, starting against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Players make debuts every so often; it's just a natural part of the baseball process. But in the case of Mayers, we do not know what kind of MLB future he will have. This could just be a short-term thing.
Mayers, after all, is not a particularly esteemed prospect. His start on Sunday was more or less a matter of circumstance and availability rather than him being viewed as a blue-chip future superstar, as Craig Edwards detailed. For all we know, what we saw last night was the extent of his Cardinals career. This was going to be true regardless of his performance in his debut.
Here is a comparison of Mayers's very brief Cardinals career to the careers of the other pitchers (excluding position players pitching) to pitch fewer than nine innings with the St. Louis Cardinals this decade.
| Pitcher | Year | IP | ER | H | BB | K |
| Evan MacLane | 2010 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Bryan Augenstein | 2011 | 5 2/3 | 6 | 11 | 3 | 6 |
| Arthur Rhodes | 2011 | 8 2/3 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 6 |
| Raul Valdes | 2011 | 5 1/3 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 7 |
| C.J. Fick | 2012 | 1 2/3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| Brian Fuentes | 2012 | 5 | 5 | 6 | 5 | 6 |
| J.C. Romero | 2012 | 8 | 9 | 14 | 2 | 5 |
| Jorge Rondon | 2014 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Marcus Hatley | 2015 | 1 1/3 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Mike Mayers | 2016 | 1 1/3 | 9 | 8 | 2 | 1 |
It is far too early to know if Mayers will remain on this list. I wish him all the best in emerging from this list (in 2017, while starting games in late September after the Cardinals have already clinched the best record in baseball history, of course).
Here's the weekend in review.
Carlos Gonzalez
As has been the case for the last half-decade, there have been whispers about the Colorado Rockies shopping Carlos Gonzalez. Ben Markham outlined a case against the Cardinals acquiring him, as he may not be an improvement over Matt Holliday, let alone a substantial one.
Aaron Boone
Craig Edwards interviewed ESPN's Aaron Boone. The two discussed the Cardinals, what players have stood out during the 2016 season, and what threat the Cardinals can pose to the Chicago Cubs moving forward this season.
Prospects
The red baron looked at recent Cardinals draftees and their successes and failures early in their minor league careers. Long story short, there are a lot of small sample sizes being examined, but some have hit the ground running more than others.
Recaps
Saturday's boring unpleasantness against the Dodgers was recapped by Lil Scooter and Sunday's game slightly more interesting unpleasantness was recapped by WyoCardsFan.