It’s the sort of performance that you want to forget, but that will be easier said than done for Lance Lynn–who gave up seven runs before being lifted in the 1st inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday.
“Terrible, plain and simple,” stated Lynn afterwards. “You give up seven runs and don’t get out of the 1st inning, that’s a piss-poor effort. That’s what it was. Next time, I’ve got to be better and I will be. That’s all there is to it.”
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“It’s not something that we normally see from Lance and doubt we will again this year,” said Mike Matheny. “Those happen from time to time–you’ve just got to let them go.”
Lynn explained he felt fine warming up and there were not any other issues than pitching behind in the count and leaving balls out over the plate for Pittsburgh to capitalize on.
The 0.2 innings pitched is the shortest outing of Lynn’s career, but the St. Louis Cardinals right-hander looked beyond his big league career.
“I haven’t had a game like that in my life,” said Lynn. “It’s the $hittie$t game I’ve thrown in my life and I’m not happy about it.”
Lynn threw a total of 41 pitches (24 strikes) which could afford some flexibility in terms of waiting four days to start again.
“I’ll pitch tomorrow if they let me,” answered Lynn, allowing a smile to finally cross his face.
Matheny wasn’t ready to comment on how the rotation could potentially be affected by the abbreviated outing, but while he encouraged Lynn to move past the start and move on, he wasn’t ready to write things off for the rest of the team.
“What happened between the 1st and 9th–we saw a lot of good things happen there. We saw a team that kept coming and put a scare in the other side. We get to the 8th inning down a couple of runs, I’m liking our chances of doing something in the last one. But they got a little more space and put the nail in it. Up to that point, there were some things the guys did right. I thought they fought through their at-bats, bullpen–starting with Tyler–was terrific. Broxton and Cishek came in and did a great job. Seth had one of those nights too, once again, you let go because we’ve seen so many good night from both he and Lance.”
Tyler Lyons took over for Lynn in the 1st and delivered a career-high of 5.1 innings of relief. He allowed three hits while walking one and striking out a pair of batters.
“We’ve all been there,” said Lyons. “It’s not a fun thing. It never is. We’ve all had those outings and just gotta do your best and forget about it.”
Lyons has now thrown the longest relief outings of the last two seasons for the Cardinals–the other being 4.2 innings against Chicago on August 30, 2014.
“Anytime runners get on and your pitch count starts to creep up for the inning, you kind of realize okay,” said of Lyons of needing to get ready earlier than expected in the game. “It’s not ideal, usually you hope it’s later in the game but when it gets there, you just got to run with it and start locking it in.”
The win by Pittsburgh avoided the sweep, but by taking the first two games of the series the Cardinals still added a game to their lead in the National League Central, which is now 6 games over the Pirates.
photo credit: Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports
