Gordon Graceffo bailed out the pitching-thin Cardinals on Thursday by using his experience as a starter and opening the game with three perfect innings. His work helped the Cards beat the Orioles 7-5 and snap a season-worst five-game losing streak.
Still, the 26-year-old right-hander wanted to approach the outing from the mindset of his new role as a middle-innings reliever. So, instead of having an extended meeting with his catcher where he went over hitters in detail and he warmed up in the bullpen before retreating to the dugout to jog on the field alongside his teammates, Graceffo instead entered Thursday’s game from Busch Stadium’s bullpen door. More importantly, he stuck with the same attacking mindset that has allowed him to flourish out of the bullpen in 2026 for the Cards.
“They wanted me to treat it like a bullpen – like I was coming out of the bullpen, so I just did my own scouting that I do before every series,” said Graceffo, who pitched three perfect innings and struck out four as the Cardinals beat the Orioles 7-5 and ended a season-high five-game losing streak. “I sat down with (catcher) Pedro (Pages) for a second – nothing crazy. Then, I just went out for a bullpen stretch like normal and played catch. I made sure to be out there before the anthem to start throwing and I took it a minute at a time.”
Graceffo’s mental gymnastics of tricking his mind into believing he would still be pitching in relief – even though he worked in the first three innings instead of in the guts of the game – worked wonders for him. He didn’t find out that he would be starting the game until arriving at Busch Stadium on Thursday morning – a message relayed to him by pitching coach Dusty Blake. Knowing the night before the Cardinals were planning to use their bullpen to cover the innings, Graceffo admitted that he fully expected to get the starting nod because of his previous experience as a starter early in his career.
Graceffo opened the game with strikeouts of Jackson Holliday and Pete Alonso – Cardinal killers throughout the three-game series – and he fanned Christian Encarnacion-Strand in the second and he capped his perfect three innings of work by getting Leody Taveras to chase a 94.9 mph four-seam fastball above the zone.
Not only did he get seven swings and misses while perfectly mixing five pitches, but the Orioles hit just one ball hard (95 mph or harder) in his three innings of work, and Ramon Urias perfectly handled Colton Cowser’s 108.6 mph one hopper at second base.
“Teams look at my numbers and see a higher walk rate than I would like, and I try to use that to my advantage,” said Graceffo, who entered the game with an 11.9 percent walk rate (bottom 12th percentile in MLB). “I try to attack the zone and get the hitters feeling off balanced. It worked out today and the defense made some great plays for me.”
Graceffo delivers for pitching-thin Cards
Graceffo came through for a Cardinals team that had to put starters Andre Pallante (right elbow inflammation) and Hunter Dobbins (right forearm tightness) on the Injured List last Friday. The Cardinals promoted rookie Quinn Mathews – who will start Friday against the Pirates at Busch Stadium – but they desperately needed coverage for Thursday’s series finale against the O’s.
Enter Graceffo, who is 7-1 with an impressive 2.98 ERA in 53 games this season. Unlike in 2025, when he threw his four-seam fastball 44 percent of the time and his slider just 27 percent, he has increased the usage of his hard-biting slider to 31 percent this season. That downward breaking pitch has allowed him to keep foes on the ground 48.1 percent, which ranks in MLB’s 78th percentile.
Even though Graceffo has given up some hard contact for various stretches of the season, his pitching run value (10) ranks in MLB’s 78th percentile, his fastball run value (6) is in the 77th percentile and his off-speed run value (4) is in MLB’s 85th percentile.
He was never better than on Thursday – when the Cardinals needed length and efficiency out of their starter-turned reliever.
“What he did was incredibly important because we wanted to take him one time through the lineup, and the way he did it was awesome,” Marmol said of Graceffo, who needed just 38 pitches to cover his three innings. “What he did lined everything else up so that we could get the matchups with (Justin) Bruihl and going on down the bullpen. But Graceffo being able to do what he did was great and the four punchouts showed that his stuff was good.”
Graceffo thinks Thursday’s strong start will help him going forward the next time he works in a game as a true reliever.
“Having both (starting and relieving) perspectives is definitely helpful and I can take stuff from both to help with the other,” Graceffo said. “I’m really looking forward to the next time through.
“I just always want to be on the attack and make them adjust to me – and not the other way around. Just being able to get strike one by putting it where I wanted it and having it play the way I wanted, that was all huge for me.”
