9.2.17 Recap: Cards lose a rough one

Well. I don’t really want to write this recap any more than you want to read it, but somebody agreed to fill in for IHB months ago. Here we go:

The Cardinals lost a dumb game for stupid baseball jerks today. Games like this are Mad Libs exercises at this point: the game was going fine until the NINTH inning, when the CLOSER PLATOON(?) messed up by ALLOWING TWO MEASLY HITS to TIE the game. There was still a GOOD chance to win, but the team squandered it when THE OVERENTHUSIASTIC YOUNGSTER, perhaps under bad instructions from the THIRD BASE COACH, was THROWN OUT ON THE BASES LIKE A NINCOMPOOP. Then marginal reliever RYAN SHERRIFF pitched in a high leverage spot, and NICK HUNDLEY hit a HOME RUN to end it. Cards lose, POOP to BARF.

But I dunno, let’s see if we can do 500 words.

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It was an old-fashioned pitchers’ duel for a while there. Jeff Samardzija pitched well for the Giants, and Lance Lynn pitched... I don’t know about “well” (his first strikeout came in the 8th inning and he walked four), but he kept the ball mostly on the ground and the Giants entirely off the scoreboard for eight innings. He certainly pitched well enough to allow the Giants (who really stink this year) to get themselves out over and over, so that was good.

The Cards got on the board when Dexter Fowler “singled” in a run in the 4th. For some reason it was scored a single despite Fowler safely touching second before oversliding the bag and being tagged out in a rundown, but who cares. The Cardinals did not score any more runs after that.

The Giants didn’t score until the bottom of the 9th. Lynn had thrown 101 pitches and was due to see the top of the lineup for the 4th time, so Matheny wisely took him out. He went first to lefty Tyler Lyons, who was appearing in his third straight game. The intent may have been to limit Lyons to one batter: Denard Span, who is also a lefty. In any case, Bruce Bochy rolled his eyes and sent up a righty, Hunter Pence, who promptly singled. Joe Panik bunted him to second, and Matheny called on Seung Hwan Oh to pitch to Buster Posey.

Posey dinked a little blooper into right to tie the game. It was exactly as stupid a little fart of a hit as you can imagine. It was a Magneuris Sierra hit. It worked fine for the Giants’ purpose, and the game was tied.

Ryan Sherriff, of all people, was then viewed as the best option to pitch in a situation where if the Giants score even one run, hey, game’s over because that’s the rules. I mean, nothing against Ryan Sherriff, but there is one player on the Cardinals who could have been freely added to a MLB roster by all 29 other teams last December but they all passed on him, and his name is Ryan Sherriff. So that’s our guy.

He got out of the 9th, thankfully. But then he stayed in for the 10th! Who knows!?

Nick Hundley — who is not Todd Hundley, nor a relation of Todd Hundley, somehow — hit a home run off Sherriff in the bottom of the 10th to win the game.

Oh, and in the top of the 10th Dexter Fowler hit a leadoff triple, and the Cards didn’t score. This series of events included pinch-runner Harrison Bader breaking on contact (sort of) on a hard grounder straight to the third baseman with one out. He was dead meat at home, naturally. It is possible that Chris Maloney has developed mind control powers, and we’re all in trouble.

So that’s 600+ words, gonna call this a night. This game was awful to lose and it would be nice if like half the Cardinals’ losses this year didn’t feel just like this one.

Game Notes

• No, it isn’t Mike Matheny’s fault the offense only scored one, and Mike Matheny threw zero pitches to Nick Hundley and ran the bases zero times
• I hope they fire Mike Matheny