The box score looked more than solid–five plus innings pitched, one earned run allowed on just two hits with four walks and four strikeouts. But following the St. Louis Cardinals 3-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Sunday, starter Jaime Garcia was less than thrilled with his performance.
“Not really,” he said. “We won the game, that’s what matters.”
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“It wasn’t good enough,” he repeated to several questions. “I’ve got to do a better job than five innings.”
Garcia threw 88 pitches and left in the 6th inning after DJ LaMahieu led off with a single into right field.
“The ball was running all over the place,” pointed out Mike Matheny. “You could just watch Cruz at times–Tony has real good hands, is a very good receiver. You can see at times he’s just getting hand-cuffed–that has nothing to do with Tony. It has a lot to do with the movement you’re going to see from Jaime. It’s unique, you can’t really guess along with what it’s going to do because one will take off more than the next. It was effective today, no question–they didn’t have a hit in the game there forever.”
It was that movement, in particular the four walks, which seemed to bother Garcia.
“Today, I threw a lot of pitches close to the strike zone but they just didn’t swing at it,” he said. “I’ve got to do a better job at that.”
Trevor Rosenthal picked up the win–his first since May 25th against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
PISCOTTY CONTINUES STREAK
–Rookie Stephen Piscotty continued to swing a hot bat, extending his hitting streak to eight games (.463, 12-26) with a double and single on the day. He has also now hit safely in all 10 games (.424, 14-33) that he has started for the Cardinals.
photo credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports
