ST. LOUIS -- In a season of St. Louis baseball that has been marked by conversations about what the future of the Cardinals may someday hold, there are already some pretty interesting things happening in the present.
On a temperate evening in downtown St. Louis, Cardinals rookie left-hander Quinn Mathews matched with his performance the gorgeous weather in which he pitched.
Mathews dazzled by dicing through the Giants’ lineup with his five-pitch mix, racking up eight strikeouts across 6 2/3 innings. He allowed just one run as the Cardinals beat the Giants, 2-1, on Monday night at Busch Stadium.
The lefty retired the first 10 batters he faced to start the game and kept San Francisco out of the hit column until the sixth inning. Despite carrying the no-hit bid that deep into the game, Mathews didn’t view his stuff as no-hit caliber.
He credited rookie catcher Leo Bernal with steering him through the early portion of his night.
“Kudos to Bernal,” Mathews said. “He kind of navigated the first three innings -- I think I shook one pitch in three innings, which is unbelievable, to be honest with you. So a lot of credit to Bernal there, getting me through the first three when I wasn’t as sharp as I would have liked to have been.”
Mathews’ flirtation comes just a couple of weeks after the 25th anniversary of rookie left-hander Bud Smith’s no-hitter in San Diego on Sept. 3, 2001 -- which still stands as the most recent for the organization.
So, the former Stanford Cardinal who once famously threw 156 pitches in a complete-game win in college didn’t force Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol to consider history when making his determination on how long to stick with the rookie southpaw.
But with a bullpen teeming with relievers who have been extended to the brink of the season-long usage targets, Marmol left Mathews to man the mound deep into the seventh.
Mathews’ full-count walk to former Cardinals catcher Andrew Knizner loaded the bases to bring up Grant McCray, who had tagged Mathews for a double, the first Giants hit, in the previous inning.
Marmol’s move to the bullpen was rewarded by Justin Bruihl, who brought back the notion of a LOOGY (left-handed one out guy) for the night by retiring the lone batter he faced in the game to strand the bases loaded. That allowed Mathews to depart his gem of a start with the lead intact.
But to make a winner out of him, the Cardinals’ lineup had to do its part, too.
A two-run burst in the fifth inning provided Mathews with the run support he required, as Alec Burleson continued his blistering turnaround against left-handed pitching with his 110th RBI to pad his Major League lead in the category.
Later in the fifth, Bernal kept up his early Major League success with his 14th RBI in just 13 big league games.
Bernal’s knack for success with runners in scoring position comes from his contact-oriented swing -- and in his mind, a simplified approach.
“I was in the World Baseball Classic, and obviously, we know the level of pressure [of that event],” Bernal said. “When we got somebody on, we had to bring in the run. But at the same time, I’ve been doing this since [I was] a kid. It’s the same baseball. Compete, keep my mind as simple as possible, and just have fun.”
Monday’s win marked the 400th in the managerial career for Marmol -- and it fittingly came in a one-run game, the 51st in which his Cardinals have participated this season (2nd-most in MLB).
“When we’re on the right side of it, I don’t care what the score is. I’ll take the one-run games.” Marmol said with a smile. “We’ve played in a lot of them. We talked about it this afternoon and I had some guys look up what that looks like over the last 10 years, 20 years as far as one-run ballgames -- and we’ve had our fair share of tight ones.”
When Riley O’Brien closed the door on his NL-leading 37th save to conclude Monday’s win, it tied this year’s Cardinals with the 2024 club’s 51 one-run games.
Not since 2017 have the Cardinals endured more games that were decided by a single tally.
“It’s a great environment for these guys to train under, play under and learn that when you don’t have a ton of room for error, the attention to detail has to be super high,” Marmol said. “So I like that for our group a lot.”