There has been a lot of news/discussion/hype concerning the call up of Oscar Taveras this year. Well, today was his day. Not only did he make his debut, but he also felt the need not to keep the Cardinal fans waiting, and just went ahead and hit his first Major League homerun-in his second at bat. I guess he figured we had done enough waiting.
Let’s set the scene here….I think we can all agree that the game today had been pretty uneventful. Both the Cardinals and the Giants each had one hit for their side through four. Matt Carpenter was the only player who achieved a base hit, and that was a little blooper over the middle in the fourth. Oh, at some point it began raining, not sure when, but it happened (yes, it will be important to this story later).
In the fifth, Yadi was the first batter to the plate. He hit a long fly ball to right. Still no dice. Oscar Taveras came up to the plate with his second at-bat in the Majors. The first pitch was just a wee bit inside. Then, it began to rain just a little harder. Second pitch is thrown, and Taveras launches it off his bat into the right field seats. I feel like I’m writing a movie script, but this, it actually happened. Signal the rain delay, to allow the Cardinal faithful just a few extra minutes to revel in the first Oscar Taveras homerun.
At some point during the broadcast, up on screen was an overviewing stat of recent Cardinals and their first game at-bats. Albert Pujols was 1-3. Allen Craig, Yadi, and Kolten Wong were all 0-fers. I don’t know if you’ve heard it as much as I have, maybe I’m just the lucky one, but I’ve heard a lot of comparisons between Taveras and Pujols. It took Pujols four games in his debut season (in 2001) to hit a homerun. Enough said.
So, what happened the rest of the game? Michael Wacha pitched one heck of a six innings, striking out 7 and walking none-one day and one year removed from his call up. Another rain delay….Freeman pitched a perfect 7th, Neshek a perfect 8th, and Rosenthal struck out the side in the ninth. Oh, I forgot to mention a Peralta double scoring Craig in the 7th. Cards win 2-0.
It’s another good day to be a Cardinal fan!
Go Cards!
Photo credit: sports.yahoo.com
