(Busch Stadium) It’s been said many times before that when Jaime Garcia is right, he has n0-hit stuff. Conversely, when things are off it can make for a rough outing–such was the case on Sunday afternoon as Garcia lasted just 2.1 innings as his St. Louis Cardinals fell to the Arizona Diamondbacks 7-2.
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“It’s just one of those days, no excuse–I just didn’t have my stuff,” said Garcia. “I couldn’t get the movement that I wanted. A lot of those balls that they hit, they put some good swings on it. I hate to say that I got unlucky, but some of those balls found the holes and stuff’s going to happen. At the same time, I’ve got to do a better job than that.”
It was the shortest outing for Garcia since June of 2012.
“Just a rough go from the start,” said Mike Matheny, who added there were no health concerns regarding the left-hander.
“When you don’t have that good feel, you try and make better pitches and then you’re off the plate and you’re just hoping to find the zone,” added Matheny. “You see him give up that many hard hits in the 1st, you know something’s off. His whole deal is deception and movement. When the ball flattens out and it straightens out, he’s going to give up some hard hits.”
The game was also just the eighth appearance of his career that Garcia failed to strikeout a batter.
“The finger felt fine, the pressure–I think just a little bit off mechanically,” offered Garcia to a possible cause for his struggle. “Not so much the pressure in the finger, just swinging my arm a little bit. Think it’s getting under the ball, that’s the main thing.”
REYES DEBUT
–Making his first start of 2016, Alex Reyes struck out 8 batters in 4.0 innings pitched for the Memphis Redbirds (AAA). He allowed 2 hits and walked 3 batters on 85 pitches.
photo credit: Bill Greenblatt/UPI
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