St. Louis Cardinals Players Experience Mixed Results at 2015 MLB All-Star Game
The MLB-leading St. Louis Cardinals seemingly took over the 2015 National League All-Star roster, as six players–starting pitchers Michael Wacha and Carlos Martinez, closer Trevor Rosenthal, catcher Yadier Molina, shortstop Jhonny Peralta, and outfielder Matt Holliday–were named to the team last week. For all the Cardinals’ representation, though, we didn’t see much action from St. Louis players on Tuesday night in Cincinnati.
Here’s how each Cardinal representative fared:
- Peralta ended up being the Cardinals’ only starter, and he was the most productive Cardinal to participate in the game. The 33-year-old shortstop, who is having a career year while hitting for a .298 average and .828 OPS, hit seventh for the National League and collected a 2-out RBI single in the bottom of the second inning. In Peralta’s second at-bat, he took a walk and then gave way to Brandon Crawford, who played the remainder of the game at short.
- Molina relieved starting catcher Buster Posey behind the plate in the top of the sixth inning (wearing some fantastically flashy gold-based catching gear, by the way). Molina got one at-bat, which came in the bottom of the sixth, and singled off of the Baltimore Orioles’ Zach Britton. He was replaced by Los Angeles Dodger Yasmani Grandal for the final inning.
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- Neither Martinez or Wacha pitched in the game, as manager Bruce Bochy was saving the pair of starters in the event of extra innings. Cards manager Mike Matheny reportedly had some influence on that decision, which makes sense considering the fact that Martinez has already exceed his professional career-high innings total for a season, while Wacha needs to be paced due to a chronic shoulder ailment that knocked him out for a large chunk of 2014. With that said, it was a bit disappointing to see Martinez, who was named to the team on the wings of a powerful Final Vote social media campaign, go unused. Ultimately, the hope is that at ages 23 and 24, respectively, Martinez and Wacha will be able to return to plenty of future All-Star games and get their action then.
- Rosenthal was scratched shortly before the game with general soreness, which was not the biggest surprise considering the rough weekend he had in Pittsburgh. With as durable as Rosenthal has been for the Cardinals since late 2012, it’s important that they continue to monitor his workload and make sure that he doesn’t burn out, especially with an important second half on the horizon which will heavily require his presence.
- As had been determined during the past weekend, Holliday sat out the game as he continues to recover from a quad tear suffered in early June. The Cardinals are hoping that he’ll be able to return right after the All-Star break, but he still didn’t feel comfortable enough to return for the Cardinals’ pre-All-Star finale against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and thus was held out of the Midsummer Classic as a precaution.
After two more days of leisure and inactivity, the Cardinals will return for the stretch run on Friday, facing the New York Mets at Busch Stadium.