It’s a fool’s errand to read too much into anything that happens in any one baseball game and it’s absolute folly to do that on Opening Day, but it does feel to me like the Pirates won this baseball game over the Cardinals in the exact way that they’re hoping to win a lot of baseball games this year. They scored two runs early thanks to a wrap-around rally that started with a Gregory Polanco laser double off of the Clemente Wall and continued with a Jordy Mercer walk, a Francisco Liriano RBI single, and a John Jaso RBI single. They added on on the sixth when Francisco Cervelli tripled and scored on a Josh Harrison sac fly, and again in the eighth when a Jordy Mercer double scored Polanco (who was on third after a single and some shenanigans involving bunts). Four runs scored by three players, driven in by four players, with much of the run-scoring action coming in the bottom half of the lineup. On the flip side of the box score, Francisco Liriano dominated early and dealt with control issues later on his way to six shutout innings, striking out ten, walking five, and scattering three hits. In other words, he looked like Francisco Liriano. Tony Watson and Neftali Feliz threw a perfect inning of relief apiece, and Mark Melancon closed out the win with a bit of a rocky ninth inning, though much of the concern came from Matt Carpenter being a really tough out in the top of the ninth, as Matt Carpenter is wont to do.
I will again stress the earlier statement about not taking things from today too seriously, but a few different aspects of this game stood out to me. Gregory Polanco is the first one; both his double and his single were absolutely scorched off of the bat, and he worked a really nice walk in the sixth inning by laying off of a couple of Adam Wainwright breaking balls that he chased on in an earlier at-bat that ended in a strikeout. Those sorts of swings coupled with that kind of patience is exactly what had everyone excited about Polanco at this time two years ago. Neftali Feliz was also great; his fastball averaged almost 95 and hit 96, he got five swinging strikes with the seven fastballs he threw, and he played his slider off of it very nicely. David Freese made a couple of very nice plays at third base, and chipped two hits in, which was nice to see even though neither lead to any runs.
There is very little that is more reassuring than spending an entire winter thinking but maybe not being entirely sure that your baseball team is good, then seeing them play an exceedingly competent and well-executed game to get a solid win over a divisional rival on Opening Day. It ultimately means very little, of course, but in a three-team divisional race and a seven-team National League race, every win will count in the end, and putting the first one on the board is a good feeling.
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