(Busch Stadium) While he wasn’t on the mound as the last two runs crossed the plate, the box score was not what Lance Lynn or the St. Louis Cardinals hoped for tonight as they lost 7-1 to the Pittsburgh Pirates.
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Charged with 7 earned runs in 5.2 innings, Lynn allowed a pair of home runs–bringing his season total to 18, a career high.
“A couple of mistakes and you look at the two-out runs,” said Lynn. “I’ve been good in my time of making sure I don’t give up the two-out runs and things like that. Tonight, I had some things happen–felt good and just didn’t execute when I needed to. If you look at it from the last two starts, that’s two in a row that you’d like to have back. But I’ve got to make sure I end it at that.
“You’re going to go through a rut or sometimes where you don’t do what you want to do during a season and right now, I’m in that. I just need to make sure it stops where it’s at right now and get on a little bit of a run before the All-Star break so I can regroup in the All-Star break and have a good second half.
“That’s what I’m looking at now. The last two are behind me and I’m going to move forward, regroup, and do what I’m capable of and make pitches. Really hone in what I’m trying to do.”
Box scores and other numbers aside, Lynn notes there have been some mistakes and positives in his last few performances. Eliminating or minimizing the mistakes is the focus, but he also felt good about the mix of pitches and variety now at his command.
“I think today was the case of a couple sliders that got up on him, but it was also a good strikeout pitch for him,” said Mike Matheny. “We always talk about him using his secondary, it can be a positive and negative at the same time. It’s going to get some swing and misses, but when you make a mistake they seem to go quite a long ways. He had opportunities–and thought he was actually throwing the ball well, just a couple of mistakes that cost him.
“Overall, his groundballs were up. He was more efficient. It looked like he was getting ready to go deeper in this game and then bloop single, homer, two-strike/two-out homer. Just a couple of mistakes, they capitalized.”
Tonight marked the sixth consecutive start in which Lynn has not pitched past the 6th inning. Some of that can be accounted by circumstance of needing a pinch-hitter to go for offense, but it also raises the question of coming back from Tommy John surgery last year.
“I’ve never pitched a season after a surgery before, to be honest,” reminded Lynn. “I know talking to guys and picking people’s brains, this is part of the process. You guys know me well enough to know that I don’t give a damn what anybody else has gone through, I think I can handle anything.
“Is this part of it, I guess. But it’s also part of the season too. I’ve gone through these things when I’ve been healthy, or before surgery and all that. I just need to let the last one go and worry about the next one. That’s what it’s always about. What can I do the next one to help the team win? And that’s where I’m at.”
“Overall, I think he’s still way ahead of what we anticipated he was going to be able to do this year,” said Matheny. “If there is anything, which he hasn’t showed it, it just looks like he goes out there and has a real nice idea of what he’s trying to do.”
As a singular game, it’s easy to say that Pittsburgh just beat the Cardinals. Lance Lynn made more mistakes than Gerrit Cole, who allowed only a solo homerun in his 6.0 innings of work. As part of a frustrating season, how does this kind of loss fit into the proper perspective for the team?
“The perspective, I mean–we had a game last night that was kind of in our pocket, right?” posed Matheny. “It feels different today. We finished that one off, it was just kind of something different today. Today t was them jumping on our starter and not being able to jump on theirs. I think we have to try not to get stuck or buy into the fact there’s more to it than that. Playing the game and don’t draw any wholesale conclusion by any run of games.”
photo credit: Scott Kane-USA TODAY Sports
