Quinn Mathews was tagged for 10 hits and seven earned runs -- MLB worsts in his three career starts -- but he battled to retire eight of the last nine batters he faced to save the Cardinals bullpen for Sunday's series finale against the Phillies.
Sometimes, even in defeat, struggling starting pitchers can score under-the-radar victories that prove to be highly important for their teams.
Despite struggling through the worst of his three career MLB starts, Mathews found a way to retire eight of the last nine batters that he faced before departing after 99 pitches and five innings of work. Mathews’ determination to get through at least five innings helped preserve a Cardinals bullpen that has been overworked in recent weeks and especially late with the team playing one-run affairs in five of its last six games.
Cardinals’ manager Oliver Marmol certainly took note of how Mathews worked to right himself and battle through a start where little went right over the first three innings.
“He did a good job getting those eight of the last night and that’s something we needed as innings go,” Marmol said to Cardinals TV after his squad fell to the Phillies for a second night in a row. “He could have folded and been done after three. … It was a tough outing, but the fact that he just sat down and continued to pitch, that was needed.”
Mathews’ determination allowed the Cardinals to get away with using just one relief pitcher – recently recalled right-hander Ryan Fernandez – the rest of the way. (Reserve catcher Pedro Pages handled the ninth inning of the lopsided loss.) That could prove extremely helpful on Sunday with the blossoming Kyle Leahy on the mound and facing Phillies ace Cristopher Sanchez.
At 122 1/3 innings pitched in 2026, Leahy is already well beyond the career-most 88 innings he pitched in relief last season. To combat that workload, the Cardinals have limited Leahy to five innings in each of his last three starts. If Leahy works just five innings on Sunday, the Cardinals could use as many as four relievers behind him depending on the score. That’s another reason why Mathews’ gutting his way through five innings on Saturday night took on increased importance.
Leahy, who has posted a 10-4 record with a 3.24 ERA, has not allowed more than two earned runs over any of his last 10 starts. To put Leahy’s accomplishment into context, Adam Wainwright is the club’s all-time leader in consecutive starts with two or fewer earned runs allowed with 12. Hall of Famer Bob Gibson is second will 11 straight.
Mathews, 25, pitched well in his first two spot starts at the big-league level, holding the Blue Jays to two earned runs on Aug. 1 and surrendering just a solo homer against the Reds on Monday. This time, however, he regularly fell behind in counts and was tagged for three runs in the first and four more in the third inning.
Besides gritting his way through five innings, another positive for Mathews to take out of Saturday’s start was the three strikeouts he racked up against superstar slugger Bryce Harper, who took out his frustration on Fernandez in the sixth inning with a three-run homer. Three times, Mathews used a hard-breaking slider off the plate to get Harper to chase for strikeouts.
Philadelphia’s three lefties – Kyle Schwarber, Luis Arraez and Harper – went just two for eight against Mathews in his five innings of work.
“If this had happened several months ago, I’m not sure he makes it through five (innings),” Marmol said of Mathews, who shook off a second straight slow start to the season to pitch well at Triple-A Memphis and earn an MLB promotion. “He’s grown in that area, I think, because (Philadelphia) is a tough environment to pitch in. But him being able to give us a couple more innings was important. Now, we have some more (relief) guys (on Sunday) and we know what we’re doing with monitoring Leahy after five innings. Just using (Fernandez) and a position player allows us to get a reset heading into (Sunday).”
