Visits: 2
If you were fortunate enough to watch ESPN Sunday Night Baseball this past Sunday between the St. Louis Cardinals and the San Francisco Giants, you were treated to an historical night filled with interesting storylines. The first and probably the most significant fact was that Adam Wainwright and Yadier Molina became the leading pitching-catching battery in MLB history with 203 wins together and that fact alone made this game worth watching.
Never mind that the Cardinals put on offensive fireworks display and pounded the visiting Giants with 15 runs including a Molina 417-foot HR. The real story line started to unfold when Giants skipper Gabe Kapler sent in rookie outfielder Luis Gonzalez to pitch in the seventh inning. If you’re getting blown away, why not save some arms in the bullpen from extra work, right? Gonzalez got the call to start in left field and finished with the final outs of the night for the Giants.
The story line that everyone who follows baseball knows by now is not that Luis Gonzalez came in and got his first pitching stats in the Show. Gonzalez had to face none other than Albert Pujols in the ninth inning in what can be regarded as one of the most . . . interesting pitching duels in recent memory. Yes, you’re reading it right – Albert Pujols came in to be the Cardinals closer last Sunday night. After a venerable career that will no doubt lead to Cooperstown when all is said and done, Albert Pujols added “pitcher” to his illustrious baseball resume. In doing so, Pujols joined none other than Babe Ruth in being the only two major leaguers to hit over 600 home runs and pitch in a Major League game.
Well, how did Pujols do? The short answer is well, the Cardinals did finish with a win and since Pujols came in with such a large lead, sadly he didn’t earn a save. It is very ironic that a position player was called upon to pitch gave up a three-run homer to the same Luis Gonzalez who is a position player called upon to pitch. Talk about a story line here, folks. It became a duel to see how slow the pitches came in from these two would-be hurlers, which of course alternated between frustrating batters used to 90+mph fastballs and those batters who chose to use the rest of the game for batting practice.
Albert Pujols finished out the night surrendering homers to Luis Gonzalez and Joey Bart and still held on to a 15-6 final win for the Cardinals. The end of the game was pure baseball theater and I would be willing to bet that even the Giants dugout was cheering for Albert Pujols. Sometimes we need to just take a step back and remember that baseball is a form of entertainment and just enjoy the show. For this valiant efforts and inaugural pitching assignment, Pujols now can “brag” about his 66.7 mph fastball and his ERA of 36.0 . Well, maybe he won’t be bragging about that so much but maybe the Redbirds will look to Yadier Molina to pitch in a game soon? Why not – baseball needs to be fun and if the players are having fun, we shouldn’t we have fun watching them?
You must be logged in to post a comment Login