Cardinals offense red hot with 14 hits and 8 runs scored April 14th, 2025
Tonight’s game was one of the more entertaining games of the season, and well, maybe even in general! I’ll need a little more time to think about. But we had a lot of fun in the gamethread tonight.
This game was action packed with the Cardinals banging out 14 hits and scoring 8 runs out of it, which is really productive! It is nice to be able to score a run over half the time you get a hit. It didn’t even annoy me that the Cardinals hit into a double play in the 8th inning. Giving up a three run home run in the 9th inning didn’t matter either.
Sonny Gray graced us with his first really good start of 2025, which helped set the tone. I turned the game on just after the Cardinals scored 1 run off a Willson Contreras force out scoring Lars Nootbaar. Sonny was holding the Astros scoreless through 3. Then from our embarassment of riches catchers, Pedro Pages ripped a 2 run double to left field which scored Donovan and Walker. It was 3-0 Cardinals.
The Cardinals would extend the lead to 4-0 in the 4th inning with a Lars Nootbaar line drive single to center. Sonny Gray would continue dominating the Astros lineup and in the 5th inning the Cardinals offense would extend its lead further. Nolan Arenado had a helluva night and hit a double which scored Willson Contreras who is also back to his old hitting self. And then also in the 5th Brendan Donovan picked up an RBI double! Both doubles included throwing errors from the Astros which essentially turned the hits into triples. Nolan Gorman got into the RBI fun with a sacrifice fly scoring Donovan.
The sixth inning went quietly by and the 7th inning marked Sonny Gray’s last for the night, ending up who I would call the player of the game: .255 WPA leading the night, with only 3 hits against over 7.1 IP and no runs allowed. He didn’t strike out as many batters this time but he didn’t need to, apparently. And he only walked one batter! The 7th took the Cardinals run total to 8 because Nolan Arenado wasn’t done just yet: he hit a no doubt line drive home run out to center!
Fernandez was able to get through the Houston lineup in the 8th and Roddery Munoz had the mound for the 9th inning. By this point of the game the outfield had both Victor Scott II and Michael Siani patrolling, and both of them were able to get hits tonight! Munoz had some trouble but even though he gave up a 3 run home run, it didn’t matter as he was able to finish out the game 8-3! Both Fernandez and Munoz gave up 2 hits but only Roddery gave up the long ball.
The Cardinals offense has now toppled four aces: Skenes, Nola, Wheeler, and Framber Valdez tonight.
Notes
- Leadoff extraordinaire Nootbaar 2-3 with a walk, RBI, and run scored
- Arenado 3-4 with a home run, 2 RBI, and 2 runs scored
- Brendan Donovan 4-4!
- Pages 2 run double
- Both Siani and Scott II had singles tonight, might not see that again all season (Siani was in as a defensive replacement and had a hit in his only at bat tonight)
- Framber Valdez gave up 10 hits and 6 earned runs tonight… he had a 2.5 ERA (and an xFIP just over 3.0) before the Cardinals hitters made it bloom to 4.50, which was Sonny Gray’s ERA before tonight
- Gray’s ERA dropped to 3.13 after tonight, while sustaining a 3.27 xFIP (was 3.72) which just goes to show how volatile early April is
I almost forgot this amazing defensive play by Jordan Walker in right field! In the gamethread it was purported that the play covered the most ground in the outfield this year, around 150’. He also looked comfortable catching this foul ball right near the fence.
Tomorrow night same time: Fedde faces Hunter Brown who also has an ace level ERA this season. We will see how that goes!
