Five innings, no hits, and a career high for Mathews
Five innings without a hit. That was where Quinn Mathews stood on Monday night, and the Giants had no answer for him. The rookie left-hander finally came out after six and two-thirds, charged with one run on four hits, two walks and eight strikeouts. A career best. The Cardinals took it 2-1.
Leo Bernal did the rest. The catcher went 3-for-3, drove in a run with a fifth-inning single, and threw out a runner trying to steal second. None of it was new to either of them. Bernal and Mathews had already been paired together in the minors, and this was the third time Bernal had caught him since his call-up from Triple-A Memphis in early September.
“He just stayed on the attack, plain and simple,” manager Oliver Marmol said of his pitcher. “Even with runners on base, you could see he wasn’t rattled. That makes you want to keep running him out there.”
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75-76, and a front office already looking at 2027
The math is unforgiving. St. Louis sits at 75 wins and 76 losses, and October is gone. What is left is the audition. Bernal is hitting .327 with three home runs and 14 RBIs across his first 13 major league games, and Marmol keeps coming back to the same two things: the poise, and how well the kid reads the strike zone.
One number frames the whole year. Only the Dodgers have played more one-run games than the Cardinals, who are 24-27 in them. Marmol’s view is that this is exactly what accelerates a young roster. There is nowhere to hide in a one-run game.
Pallante faces the Giants again, six days after the bullpen undid him
Andre Pallante takes the mound Tuesday night at 12-6 with a 3.45 ERA. He saw these same Giants last Wednesday in San Francisco and gave them almost nothing, one run and five hits over five innings, before the bullpen coughed up a 5-1 lead and lost 7-6. His last seven starts have produced a 1.99 ERA, a stretch broken up only by a two-and-a-half-week stay on the injured list in late August with an elbow problem.
Blade Tidwell goes again for San Francisco. The rookie was the one charged with five runs, four earned, in four innings that night. The Giants have dropped four straight since and sit at 62-89. Matt Chapman and Rafael Devers are both shut down with abdominal injuries. Logan Webb could be next, which would close out a run of three straight seasons leading the National League in innings pitched.
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