Today Adam Wainwright was supposed to be on the mound pitching the series finale against the Phillies on a beautiful St. Louis day.
Instead he was in post-op, recovering from achilles surgery and a young lefty by the name Tim Cooney was called up from AAA to make his MLB debut to try and plug the hole that Wainwright’s injury left behind.
We knew it was a tall order. We didn’t expect much.
We didn’t get much.
Let’s just say that it’ll probably be 2016 before Tim Cooney makes another start for the Cardinals unless something goes horribly wrong.
He lasted 2 1/3 innings, gave up 3 earned runs, 7 hits and 1 walk. His career ERA is now 11.57, which doesn’t play well on a team chasing the best record in baseball.
With Marco Gonzales and Jaime Garcia looking to come back from injuries sooner than later, Cooney is going to have to work on his game back in Memphis before he gets another shot. We all wish him luck – he did strike out 3 and get that first game under his belt, so there’s something to build on.
The good news, though, is that the Cardinals got 6 2/3 innings of 0 run baseball from their bullpen, including an impressive 3 2/3 from Carlos Villanueva.
Oh, and 9 runs too. Those don’t hurt when your starting pitching isn’t working.
The Cardinals now have a +37 run differential, good for best in MLB before the rest of Thursday’s games are played. They finish April with a 15-6 mark, also tops in MLB.
If Waino hadn’t gone down, I think excitement level on this team would be reaching October levels five months early. They still haven’t lost a series and have a real chance to put the Pirates in a substantial hole before we get close to Memorial Day.
They’re on pace to win well over 100 games!
Everyone is still working their way back into the new reality of a 5th spot in the rotation being up for play, though. The Cardinals, seem to be handling the situation as well as can be expected, having their offense show up on a day that they knew they were going to have to carry the win.
Wainwright has successful surgery http://t.co/RgQTQoppHL
— St. Louis Post-Dispatch (@stltoday) April 30, 2015
I know it’s been a tough week.
But Adam is on the mend. The Cardinals are on fire. And the Bucs are coming into town for a weekend showdown.
Get fired back up!
Photo: Viva El Birdos
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