The 2014 season finally began in earnest on Monday. The Cardinals opened up their season playing a familiar and hated rival, the Cincinnati Reds. To many, the Reds are now the Cardinals’ biggest rivals, with both teams trading division titles since 2009 with many hotly contested games and controversial moments between them. The Reds bring back most of their squad from 2013, with a few changes. Shin-Soo Choo is gone, having signed with the Texas Rangers in the offseason. Replacing him at the top of the lineup and in center field is the ultra-speedster phenom Billy Hamilton. Hamilton is quite possibly the fastest player to play in the majors in years, and swiped an astounding 130 bases in the minor leagues the past 2 seasons, and in only 13 major league games, stole 13 bases. Nobody can deny his blinding speed, but the knock on Hamilton has been his on base percentage, and his tendency to strike out. After losing the .423 OBP and .885 OPS Choo put up last year, Hamilton will need to prove he can improve his ability to get on base and wreak havoc in front of Brandon Phillips, Joey Votto, and Jay Bruce.
(Photo courtesy Jake Roth USA Today Sports)
Monday’s game pitted Adam Wainwright of the Cardinals against Johnny Cueto for the Reds. Wainwright displayed his usual dominance, striking out nine while only allowing three hits (he did walk four batters, an unusually high number for him), over seven scoreless innings. Meanwhile, Cueto, finally completely healthy for the first time in a long time, nearly matched him, striking out eight over seven innings, while only allowing three hits and one walk. Unfortunately for him, one of those hits was a home run by Yadier Molina, who jumped all over a first pitch cutter in the seventh inning and deposited it in the left field stands.
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That one run would be all the Cards would need, although some shaky defense would make things interesting in the eighth inning. After reliever Pat Neshek allowed a leadoff walk to Phillips, Cards’ manager Mike Matheny went to lefty Kevin Siegrist to face Votto and Bruce. Siegrist induced a potential double-play out of Votto, but the ball went through the legs of new second baseman Kolton Wong, putting runners at the corners with nobody out. Siegrist then got the first out on a grounder to Matt Adams, who caught Phillips in a rundown and kept the runners at first and second. Carlos Martinez, recently named the primary setup man instead of fifth starter, then entered, and promptly induced yet another potential double-play ball, but Adams dropped the relay. With runners at the corners again and two outs, Martinez struck out Todd Frazier on a nasty slider. Closer Trevor Rosenthal then made quick work of the Reds in the ninth with a 1-2-3 inning featuring a pair of strikeouts. The shutout marked the first time since 1953 that the Reds had been shutout in their opening game.
Both teams had an off-day on Tuesday. Game two of the series is tonight at 6:10 CDT. The match-up features lefty Tony Cingrani of the Reds against NLCS MVP and young phenom Michael Wacha. The game is the 2nd of 15 straight games against fellow Central Division teams for the Cardinals.
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Red Bird Nation 