While one Cardinals rookie silenced the Reds through seven innings Tuesday night at Busch Stadium, another Cardinals rookie produced a long-awaited offensive lift that supported his starter and helped propel his team to a win.
In the third inning, as starter Michael McGreevy worked around some early traffic vs. Cincinnati to protect a 1-0 lead provided by a sacrifice fly from Nolan Arenado, shortstop Thomas Saggese connected on a two-run home run to mark his second of the season and first since early April.
Saggese’s blast to left field extended the Cardinals’ lead, which would be protected by McGreevy’s first scoreless outing since pitching six scoreless innings vs. the Cubs on Aug. 8. The 3-0 shutout win over the Reds at Busch Stadium was completed with scoreless innings of relief by JoJo Romero and Riley O’Brien, both of whom were unavailable Monday night because of usage.
O’Brien’s scoreless outing secured him his fifth save of the season.
McGreevy’s outing matched a season-high and was his longest since twirling seven innings on July 21 against the Rockies. It outlasted that of his Tuesday night counterpart, Andrew Abbott.
After forcing Abbott to throw 29 pitches in the first inning, the Cardinals (74-78) continued to work Abbott’s pitch count to 82 by the end of the fourth inning and chased him from his start with two outs in fifth inning following 96 pitches thrown by the lefty. The grinding at-bat led to eight hits and three runs scored off Abbott.
Saggese ends homer drought
Homerless in 245 consecutive plate appearances following his single in the first inning, Saggese ended his home run drought when he pulled a 3-2 changeup from Abbott into the Reds bullpen in left field.
The two-run homer, which extended the Cardinals’ lead to 3-0, had an exit velocity of 107.7 mph, per Statcast. It marked Saggese’s third in the majors and his first-career home run at Busch Stadium. His other two homers came at Rogers Centre in Toronto and Fenway Park in Boston.
Before receiving a changeup from Abbott on the sixth pitch of his at-bat, Saggese took back-to-back fastballs for balls to begin the at-bat, then fouled off back-to-back changeups. After taking a fastball that just missed below the strike zone, Saggese got a third changeup that he lifted 391 feet for his third homer in the majors.
Gold Glove defenders back McGreevy
Pitching with two Gold Glove award winners behind him on the infield, McGreevy benefited from snazzy plays by Nolan Arenado and Brendan Donovan in the second and third innings.
When McGreevy put runners on first and second base to begin the second inning, the rookie right-hander got Tyler Stephenson to hit a chopping ground ball to third base. The ground ball forced Arenado, a 10-time Gold Glove award winner, to charge in towards the third base bag and fielded it on a short hop. Arenado stepped on the bag for the force out and made an off-balance throw across his body to first base to complete a double play.
McGreevy got through the scoreless inning with a groundout of Ke’Bryan Hayes after walking Elly De La Cruz in the next at-bat.
An inning later, Donovan’s positioning on a ball that kicked off Alec Burleson’s glove helped McGreevy record a groundout of TJ Friedl.
Burleson tried to field Friedl’s ground ball on his glove side but saw it kick off his glove on a trajectory behind him. Donovan leapt, fielded the baseball with his bare hand, and made a quick throw to McGreevy covering the bag.
Friedl was originally ruled safe by first base umpire Ryan Additon as it appeared McGreevy’s was pulled off the bag by Donovan’s throw, but a replay review overturned the call.
A new career-high for McGreevy
While he kept the Reds to no runs over seven innings, McGreevy worked around a career-high in walks allowed with three.
In 19 appearances (17 starts) in the majors heading into Tuesday, McGreevy did not walk more than two batters in any of those outings and ranked in the 99th percentile for walk rate in the majors with 3.6%.
McGreevy issued a leadoff walk in the second inning to Reds rookie Sal Stewart on six pitches as he fed the righty four breaking pitches in the at-bat that all missed the strike zone. The double play turned by Arenado on Stephenson’s ground ball later and Hayes’ ground out following a four-pitch walk to De La Cruz later in the inning helped McGreevy work around the free passes.
The third walk by McGreevy was a leadoff walk to Friedl to open the sixth inning. Back-to-back strikeouts of Gavin Lux and Noelvi Marte and a groundout of Stewart got the Cardinals righty through the inning.
McGreevy last issued three or more walks in a game in a professional setting on April 27 while pitching for Class AAA Memphis.
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Daniel Guerrero | Post-Dispatch
Baseball writer
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