Cardinals Home Opener Soured by Padres, Lose 5-3 on Friday

After all of the Opening Day festivities took place at Busch Stadium in the afternoon following many activities at Ballpark Village and other local venues, an actual baseball game was played Friday in St. Louis. Failing to get much going at the plate, the Cardinals fell to the Padres by a 5-3 final score.

Padres rookie left-hander Nick Margevicius worked five solid innings, limiting the Cardinals to just one hit - it was Paul DeJong’s third home run of the season in the fourth.

Four San Diego relievers combined to pitch the final four innings and allowed two more runs, highlighted by Paul Goldschmidt first homer at Busch Stadium as a Cardinal. Goldschmidt was greeted warmly when first introduced in the pregame ceremonies and again when he made his first plate appearance. After the long ball, Goldschmidt gave fans a curtain call following a standing ovation and audible ‘Goldy’ chants.

Kirby Yates recorded his fourth save of the season for the Padres, and that is tied for the most in the National League. Milwaukee’s Josh Hader also has four.

The Cardinals totaled four hits on Friday: the home runs from the Pauls, a Matt Carpenter double, and an RBI single from Marcell Ozuna in the sixth. With two walks and seven strikeouts as a team, St. Louis had only three at-bats with runners in scoring position and left three on base.

Not to be lost in today’s box score is the outing Jack Flaherty posted. In his first home-opener assignment, Flaherty twirled five scoreless innings and fanned six batters, including Wil Myers to end a bases-loaded threat in the top of the third.

Fernando Tatis Jr., the Padres shortstop and son of former Cardinal Fernando Tatis Sr., smashed a two-run homer in the seventh inning off Alex Reyes to score San Diego’s fourth and fifth runs of the afternoon, which proved to win the game. That is only the second home run Reyes has surrendered in 53 innings in the Majors.

It was nearly 20 years ago, back on April 23, 1999, that Tatis Sr. hit two grand slams in one inning. He is the only player that has achieved that feat.

The Cardinals and Padres will be back in action on Saturday at Busch Stadium. Michael Wacha and Chris Paddack will face off in the 1:15 PM Central time game.