Michael McGreevy grew up 60 miles north of San Diego and rooting for the Padres while dreaming of someday becoming a big-league pitcher. On Friday, he lived out those dreams while holding San Deigo to one hit in six scoreless innings.
While Cardinals’ rookie JJ Wetherholt recorded a career first with a “Little League Grand Slam” that led to four runs, teammate Michael McGreevy also accomplished the kind of dream-like performance every child ponders on Friday night.
Pitching 60 miles from his San Clemente, Calif., home with several family members and friends in the stands and facing a Padres team he grew up rooting for as a kid, McGreevy was at his absolute best by surrendering just one hit and striking out a career-best nine in six scoreless innings of the Cardinals’ 6-0 throttling of San Diego at Petco Park.
McGreevy (3-2) extended his scoreless streak to 14 innings – the second-longest active scoreless streak in MLB. Having not allowed a hit in his first start of the season against the Rays, just three hits last week against the Dodgers and only one single on Friday, McGreevy has surrendered just 29 hits in 45 1/3 innings pitched this season.
“His changeup was working really well for him and he’s mixing really well to both sides,” Oliver Marmol said to Apple TV as McGreevy got seven swings and misses on his nine changeups.
McGreevy induced a career-best 17 swinges and misses on Friday and all nine of his strikeouts were of the swinging variety. The 25-year-old right-hander pitched out of a bases loaded jam in the fourth inning and allowed the fewest hits to the Padres by a Cardinals pitcher since Bud Smith fired a no-hitter in San Diego on Sept. 3, 2001.
JJ First Card with 'Little League Grand Slam' in 59 years
McGreevy got all the run support he needed when Wetherholt broke a scoreless tie with a “Little League Grand Slam.” After singling to right field to score Masyn Winn, Wetherholt looked on in shock as Platinum Glover Fernando Tatis Jr. misplayed the ball and it rolled to the wall.
Wetherholt circled the bases and scored standing up. As he cross the plate, he let out a scream of joy along with teammates Victor Scott, Nathan Church, Ivan Herrera and Winn.
“Just run, to be honest,” Wetherholt told Apple TV of what he thought when he saw the ball get past Tatis Jr. “I wasn’t really running too hard out of the box and I just wanted to read and see where he threw it. But once it got by him, I just had to turn it on and keep going. Then, I saw (third base coach) Pop (Warner) waving me and I was losing a helmet and an elbow guard, but I was able to get in there and that was pretty sweet.”
It was MLB’s first “Little League Grand Slam” since Colorado’s Michael Toglia did it to the Cardinals on June 7, 2024, per Elias Sports Bureau. Wetherholt was the first Cardinal to record the “Little League Grand Slam” since Dal Maxvill did it on July 13, 1967.
“(His Cardinals teammates) were just trying to let me breathe because I needed to, but they were super fired up,” Wetherholt said. “But that was big for us because we weren’t scratching any runs and that kind of opened up the game for us.”
Herrera had four hits as the Cardinals improved to an MLB best 13-5 on the road. The Cards have won their last six games on the road and overall, they have been victorious in nine of their last 11 games. Winning the first two games of the four-game series in San Diego pushed the Cards to a season-best eight games over .500 on the season.
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