The St. Louis Cardinals took on the Colorado Rockies over this weekend, and the series was hallmarked by great starting pitching. The Cardinals bullpen didn’t even make an appearance until game 3. Which also marked the Rockies first baserunner to reach third base. At one point, before Adam Wainwright issued a walk to Todd Helton in the 5th inning of game 2, Shelby and Waino had combined to sit down 40 straight Rockies.
Shelby essentially threw a perfect 27 outs after the Rockies leadoff man reached on a bloop broken single. He struck out 13, mostly with a fastball hanging around 94-95 mph. His first two strikeouts of the game were on nearly identical pitches freezing batters on both sides of the plate.
What Shelby did with the fastball, Wainwright did with his curve. With nearly identical strikeouts on an unhittable curve in the 1st and 4th innings.
That’s some consistent pitching.
In game 3 the roles were switched with the Cardinals getting held hitless until the 7th, and later avoiding the shutout. 2 out of 3 to start the homestead with back to back complete game shutouts does, however, bode well for the rest of the current 10 game homestand.
With Westbrook taking a brief stint on the DL for some elbow inflammation, we’ll see if John Gast (1.38 era through 32 innings in AAA) can step into the rotation and continue the hot pitching.
Reply