Today, we face the Padres. Jack Flaherty vs. Jordan Lyles. Despite being much younger than Lyles, Flaherty is a much better pitcher. The Padres have eight other baseball men playing tonight, batting in a certain order. Their names, from my memory, are:
Janky
Hoss
Hunter Renfroe
Franmil
Spanky
Xian
Shorty (Freddy)
Raffy

The Cardinals also played 8 other baseball men, in addition to Mr. Flaherty. Their names were:
Matty Carp
Tommy Pham
Jose Martinez (aka Cafecito)
Marcell
Yadi
Jedd (aka Padres Slayer)
Dex Gonna Give It to Ya
Yairo like Gyro

This oughta go well. Let’s smash these noobs.

Pitching (1-8)

Jack Flaherty was throwing globs of mercury instead of baseballs. Outside of a second inning dinger and pair of singles (thankfully in that order), the only baserunner Flaherty allowed all night–ALL NIGHT!–was a four-pitch walk to Cory Spangenberg after 7.1 innings of 1-run ball. To his credit, Matheny acted quickly in pulling young Jack, so it’ll probably blow up in his face.

John Brebbia pitched a scary 2/3 of an inning featuring back-to-back walks to load the bases, then back-to-back strikeouts to end the half-inning. No harm, no foul.

Austin Gomber came in for the 8th and gave up a leadoff double to Travis Jankowski and got a groundout from Hosmer. Tuivailala took over. Jankowski took third on a wild pitch and scored on a Hunter Renfroe groundout, effectively doubling the Padres’ score. Tui ended the half-inning with a strikeout.

Hitting (1-8)

I’ll summarize, because sometimes there is beauty in brevity:

Third Inning: Jose Martinez Moonshot, Tommy Pham scores

Fifth Inning: Marcell Ozuna over the left-center wall, Jose Martinez scores

Eighth Inning: Jedd Gyorko tacks on an insurance run with a solo shot, because San Diego (AKA of course he did)

At the close of 8, the Cardinals led 5-2.

Pitching (9)

Sometimes I type sentences, then pretend I’m me from six months ago so I can get past me’s reaction to the sentence. Sometimes past me thinks present me is funny, and sometimes he thinks I’m downright absurd.

Bud Norris, a lonely bright spot in a mostly feckless, extremely expensive bullpen unit, reprised his role as the durable, trusty closer.

HA! HAHA! No, actually… You’re trying too hard, present me. That’s not even funny, it’s just dumb.

But really, it’s true!

Not buying it.

Okay…

At any rate, Bud Norris, a lonely bright spot in a mostly feckless, extremely expensive bullpen unit, reprised his role as the durable, trusty closer. He collected his thirteenth save, working around a plunking of Villanueva with groundouts from Spangenberg and Freddy Galvis and striking out Raffy Lopez without throwing a single ball. Cardinals win, 5-2.

The sweep is 1/3 complete. Tune in tomorrow for game 2, same time and place as today, but Lizard King is starting. Past me wouldn’t even believe it if I told him.

Well, you see, remember Ohtani? Yeah, no, we didn’t get him. We actually wouldn’t have wanted him, it turns out. No, he was awesome, but– Okay, shut up and listen. There was a better pitcher available coming over from NPB…