(Jupiter, FL) In addition to the roster moves that were announced earlier in the day, St. Louis Cardinals Manager Mike Matheny shared the additional news that Marco Gonzales will now start on Monday instead of Jaime Garcia.
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“Just working on a couple things he wants to work on,” explained Matheny of the Garcia’s request. “Not to give completely up what he’s working on, but there’s things he wants to work on—this is driven by him.”
The move is similar to what other Cardinals pitchers have done in the past as John Lackey is a recent example of wanting additional work to simulate a six inning outing on a backfield.
“It just enables him to go work,” Matheny continued. “You’re limited out here to pitches in an outing, pitches in an inning, and confined to time and space. He can sit out there, especially when we have a camp day, he can sit out there and throw for both sides if he wants to. It doesn’t matter to us, you’ve got professional hitters getting in the box. It’s just kind of a perfect storm for us to get work and that’s what Jaime wants to do.”
In his last outing, Garcia struck out six batters but also allowed 4 runs in 4.0 innings pitched against the Atlanta Braves. Overall this spring, Garcia has allowed 7 runs on 10 hits in 9.2 innings pitched during his three starts.
This will be the second start of the Grapefruit League for Gonzales, who last started on March 5th against Miami. Overall, he has appeared in four games and recorded a line of 7.2 innings pitched, 12 hits, 5 runs, 3 earned runs, 2 walks, and 6 strikeouts.
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