Photography courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, pdsphil
Well, this is awkward.
At last week’s trade deadline, the Cardinals acquired workhorse pitcher John Lackey from the Red Sox in exchange for Allen Craig and Joe Kelly. It was a controversial move by Redbirds general manager John Mozeliak, sending two popular players packing.
Then, just a few days later, thanks to a scheduling quirk, the Red Sox traveled to Busch Stadium for a rematch of last year’s World Series. It also promised to be an uncomfortable reunion between jettisoned players and their former teams.
Adding to the intrigue, Kelly and Craig learned they had been traded not from the organization but through the media, a fact that didn’t sit well in the Cardinals clubhouse. Craig refused to answer questions and left in a hurry. Over the weekend, cameras caught the usually jovial Kelly in the Red Sox dugout, looking like somebody shot his dog.
And adding even more interest, new Cardinals catcher A.J. Pierzynski, known as something of a bad boy, was released earlier this season by the Red Sox. After he left, several former teammates anonymously bashed him. Edward Mujica, the former Cardinals closer, is now with the Red Sox.
But if you were expecting locker-room drama before the game Tuesday, there was little.
Craig was injured in his first game in a Red Sox uniform and was placed on the disabled list. He made the trip back to St. Louis, but didn't play, removing some of the drama.
In pregame comments, everybody was diplomatic. “I think everything is good,” Craig said. “Having won a World Series, having played in another World Series, being one game within another World Series, being able to play with future Hall of Famers, a Hall of Fame manager, being able to play for Mike [Matheny], I’m extremely blessed.”
Kelly is scheduled to start for the Red Sox on Wednesday night. He’ll be facing Shelby Miller. They were groomsmen in each other’s weddings. But Kelly, as athletes are wont to do, downplayed the significance of the matchup. “My first start as a Red Sock,” Kelly said. “It doesn’t matter who it’s against, I just want to make it a good one.”
Even Mujica, who was offended when the Cardinals didn’t try to resign him last off-season, described his return to St. Louis like a family reunion. “[I was] part of a family for a year and a half. I think it’s gonna be good to be back in St. Louis,” he said. “It’s good to be back and see my friends and get back over there with the fans and everybody.”
Tuesday night’s game, a 3–2 win for the home team, provided all of the drama that the pregame comments lacked. It also reinforced the point made by the deadline deals: The defending champion Red Sox (49–63) are giving up on this lost-cause season, while the Cardinals (60–51), despite an impotent offense, are still in position for a playoff run.
Yesterday, Michael Wacha, last year’s postseason phenom, threw for the first time in weeks, making his way back from a shoulder injury. Meanwhile, Lance Lynn, who's performed like the team’s No. 2 starter in Wacha’s absence, took the mound for the Cardinals.
In past years, the knock on Lynn was inconsistency. He’d be cruising along through a scoreless game, until one bad inning would trip him up. People started to call this a “Lynning.” He’d give up a couple of hits, then get flustered, start pacing and talking to himself. He’d walk somebody, hit a batter, the whole thing would blow up. Likewise, Lynn had a habit of starting the season strong, then running into a bad month. In both 2012 and 2013, he sprinted out to great starts, only to watch his ERA climb with the temperature in the late-summer months.
This year, though, Lynn seems to have figured something out. A soft-spoken yet desperately competitive guy, he won’t admit that anything’s changed. But it’s obvious to anyone who watches. Lynn’s matured. He’s learned how to keep his emotions—and opposing hitters—under control when he gets in a jam. Last night, Lynn pitched in and out of trouble, making up for poor defensive plays (including his own) with timely strikeouts. He went seven innings, allowing two runs, only one of them earned.
The night’s offensive hero turned out to be Pierzynski, who came up with two outs in the eighth inning. He battled Red Sox reliever Junichi Tazawa in a feisty at-bat, eventually hitting a nasty pitch, just floating the ball past the infield. Oscar Taveras, the super-prospect who will now be taking over for Craig full-time in right field, followed with a line-drive single that sent Pierzynski to third. (I know a lot of people are sad to see Craig go, but his absence will be an addition by subtraction; no matter what he did in years past, his weak bat was killing the Cardinals in 2014.) And Jon Jay, playing for the first time in a week because of an injury, brought home the winning run with a hit of his own.
The Cardinals are now 4–1 since the big trade. Could it be that Mozeliak’s move was the perfect wake-up call for an underachieving team?
When asked in the postgame locker room whether he took extra satisfaction in beating the team that cast him off, Pierzynski laughed and said, “No comment.”
“I haven’t had the year that I was expecting to have obviously,” he said, a comment that could apply to many Cardinals hitters. “I just feel like I’m in a better place.”
With a strong pitching rotation made even better by trades, with players getting healthy, with young guys and veteran hitters showing signs of breaking out, and with a guy like Pierzynski here to shake up a complacent clubhouse, the Cardinals seem poised to take off.
