The dominance of John Lackey at Busch Stadium continued as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Minnesota Twins 3-2 on Monday night. Lackey gave up the two runs on five hits and struck out six over eight innings pitched. He’s now 7-1 at home since being acquired at last year’s trade deadline.
“I felt pretty good,” said Lackey. “I threw a lot of strikes and located my fastball pretty good, was able to get late in the game.”
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The outing was not without incident as after the 7th inning, FSN television cameras showed Lackey and Yadier Molina engaged in a heated exchange in the dugout.
“Me and Yadi are good,” stated Lackey. “That’s none of yall’s business.”
Minnesota had scored their first run of the game in that half inning after a double and single. Their at-bat ended with a strikeout.
“Yeah, two intense guys who have a passion for what they do and with intensity comes sometimes conflict and it happens. It happens more often than you understand and that’s just part of the game,” explained Mike Matheny, who interjected himself between the two. “They were working well together. When you have guys that are that fierce–and also that open about your emotions. When you show and you wear everything on your sleeve, it opens up for a lot of things. We don’t want to take emotion away from our guys. Sometimes you rub each other the wrong way.”
Besides his contribution behind the plate, Molina hit his first home run of the season–a back-to-back shot following Mark Reynolds into the left field bullpen.
“I know that it’s been an issue with everybody else more so than in our clubhouse,” said Matheny. “But sooner or later, that wears on you, especially a guy that’s hit 20 before and everybody wants to talk about everything on the outside that might be influencing–whether it’s his diet or his exercise program, whatever it is that’s not giving him the power.”
It was the first home run in 95 games for Molina, who had gone since June 27, 2014 without a round-tripper.
“He’s been hitting balls hard,” continued Matheny. “He hit four balls on the button today and just finally got one that carried a little bit better for him. We’re not concerned, I know the rest of the watching world is but he just was able to do maybe take that off his back and not think about it so much and keep doing what he’s been doing.”
photo credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports
