> For the third time already this year, former Cardinals ace Kyle Lohse lost to a rookie on his former team. This time it was John Gast, who after a slow start picked his pitch efficiency back up and ended up not allowing anyone to score after five.
He was pulled in the sixth with two on and one out, and Seth Maness came on to relieve him. He gave up two consecutive RBI singles to make it a 4-2 game.
He stayed in the game. Not necessarily a bad move on Mike Matheny‘s part since everyone else in the bullpen had been somewhat used up after a starting pitching slump. But where Math went wrong was when, yet again, he had no one warming up in the bullpen just in case. And it looked as if it was going to cost him.
Three straight singles opened up the eighth inning. Superprospect Jean Segura got a crummy breaking pitch at arm-level, but he tried to do too much with it and ended up popping out.
Up comes Ryan Braun, one of the very best hitters in the world. Maness works the count full including a foul strike that was entirely inside the zone.
But Mike Matheny’s stupendous luck would not be denied, and as Trevor Rosenthal hurriedly warmed in the ‘pen, Braun grounded into an inn in-ending double play.
> Maness pitched today because, before the game, the Cardinals decided on Tyler Lyons to be their replacement for Jaime Garcia in the rotation. I didn’t even include him amongst the longshots in my list of possible replacements yesterday because he’s just been bad in the minors both this and every year. Here are his minor league numbers compared to the average MLB starter this year:
| G | GS | ERA | BAvg | BB% | K% | K/BB | BABIP | LOB% | |
| Career | 68 | 47 | 4.31 | 0.259 | 6% | 21% | 3.5 | 0.312 | 68% |
| Pre-2013 | 60 | 39 | 4.28 | 0.253 | 6% | 21% | 3.4 | 0.305 | 68% |
| 2013 | 8 | 8 | 4.47 | 0.288 | 5% | 19% | 4.2 | 0.346 | 68% |
| MLB Avg | 4.19 | 0.248 | 8% | 19% | 2.4 | 0.297 | 72% |
If the Cardinals are right about their revised expectation on Jake Westbrook‘s return date (which would be a pleasant surprise), he should be back next Thursday and Lyons should only get two starts, the first of which is against the Padres and the second of which is against the Royals.
> The Cardinals evidently know something about Kyle Lohse that no one else does. He’s got a 5.00 ERA against them and a 3.16 against everyone else. The FSN broadcast team noted that there was on on-field exchange between Lohse and the dugout, which might have something to do with the differential.
