After Báez Makes History, Cardinals Go for Series Win at Wrigley
THE CARDINAL CHRONICLE
Game Day Preview: After Báez Makes History, Cardinals Go for Series Win at Wrigley
St. Louis, MO
By Ray Mileur
How do you follow one of the greatest Major League debuts anyone has ever seen?
For Joshua Báez, the answer is pretty simple.
Play another baseball game.
One day after becoming the first player in Major League history to hit three home runs in his MLB debut, Báez and the St. Louis Cardinals return to Wrigley Field this afternoon looking to take the series from the Chicago Cubs.
First pitch is scheduled for 2:15 p.m. CT, with the game nationally televised on ABC and available through the ESPN App.
Right-hander Hunter Dobbins will start for St. Louis against Cubs right-hander Edward Cabrera.
St. Louis Cardinals: RHP Hunter Dobbins, 2-3, 3.40 ERA, 42 strikeouts
Chicago Cubs: RHP Edward Cabrera, 5-4, 5.10 ERA, 65 strikeouts
The Cardinals enter Sunday at 62-61 after Saturday’s unforgettable 8-4 victory.
Chicago is 72-52.
And after 12 meetings between the longtime rivals this season, everything comes down to one more afternoon.
The season series is tied 6-6.
Today’s winner takes it.
More importantly for St. Louis, a victory would move the Cardinals two games above .500 and keep them moving in the right direction in a crowded National League Wild Card race.
St. Louis begins the day 3½ games behind Arizona, San Diego and Philadelphia, who are tied for the final three Wild Card positions. Miami also sits between the Cardinals and that group.
There is work to do.
But there is also time to do it.
And Saturday certainly provided something worth building upon.
Joshua Báez arrived at Wrigley Field as one of the most powerful young hitters in the Cardinals organization.
He left it with his name in the Major League record book.
Báez homered on the first Major League pitch he saw.
Then he homered again.
Then, because apparently two home runs were not enough for one afternoon, he homered a third time.
Three home runs in his first three Major League at-bats.
Nobody had ever done it before.
Báez finished 3-for-4 with three home runs and five RBI as the Cardinals rebounded from Friday’s one-hit shutout and beat the Cubs 8-4.
His first home run may have been the most spectacular.
Matthew Boyd challenged Báez with a 93.4 mph fastball, and the Cardinals rookie drove it 449 feet to center field at 108.6 mph.
First pitch.
First swing.
First Major League home run.
Welcome to the Show.
The second came on a full-count changeup in his next plate appearance.
The third went the opposite way into the right-field seats.
That may have been the most encouraging swing of all.
Power hitters can pull mistakes.
The ability to stay on a pitch and drive it out of the ballpark to the opposite field suggests something more than raw strength.
Báez did not simply arrive swinging from his heels.
He adjusted.
He worked a full count.
He used the entire field.
He showed the power Cardinals fans have heard about all season, but he also showed some of the development that made the organization believe he was ready for this opportunity.
Now comes the next challenge.
The Cubs have seen him.
They have video.
They have scouting information from Saturday.
They will begin adjusting immediately.
That is Major League Baseball.
Báez will eventually see fewer pitches in the areas where he did damage Saturday. He will see more breaking balls away, more fastballs above the strike zone and more pitchers attempting to discover whether they can make him chase.
His response to those adjustments will tell us much more about the kind of Major League hitter he becomes than one extraordinary afternoon.
That is not meant to diminish what happened Saturday.
Nothing could.
Three home runs in a Major League debut deserves to be enjoyed.
But today is a new game.
Báez does not need another three home runs.
He does not need another home run at all.
He simply needs another good day of Major League at-bats.
The Cardinals need the same from the rest of the lineup.
Saturday was not entirely the Joshua Báez Show, even if nobody would blame you for remembering it that way.
Alec Burleson drove in the first run of the game with a groundout and later added his 20th home run of the season.
Blaze Jordan also homered.
St. Louis finished with five home runs after managing exactly one hit in Friday’s 3-0 loss.
That is quite a turnaround.
It is also a reminder of how dangerous this lineup can look when several young hitters produce at the same time.
Báez is 23.
Jordan Walker is 24.
JJ Wetherholt is 23.
Blaze Jordan is 23.
Masyn Winn is 24.
Iván Herrera is 26.
The Cardinals have spent much of this season talking about building for the future.
Increasingly, that future is standing in the Major League batter’s box.
Saturday offered a glimpse of what it might look like.
Today provides another.
The Cardinals should resist the temptation to treat Báez as some sort of instant savior.
That would be unfair to him and unnecessary.
He does not need to carry this lineup.
What his arrival can do is lengthen it.
A lineup containing Walker, Burleson, Herrera, Wetherholt, Blaze Jordan and now Báez gives opposing pitchers more places where one mistake can become damage.
That changes an inning.
It changes bullpen decisions.
It changes how aggressively a pitcher can attack the hitter directly in front of him.
That is where Báez can immediately help even on days when he does not hit three home runs.
While most of the attention will understandably remain on the Cardinals rookie, Dobbins has the more important job this afternoon.
He has to get outs.
The 26-year-old right-hander enters with a 3.40 ERA through nine Major League appearances, including six starts.
His record does not tell the whole story.
Dobbins has pitched well in his last two outings and received little reward.
He worked 6⅓ innings against the Yankees on Aug. 4, allowing only two earned runs on four hits.
Six days later against Philadelphia, he allowed one earned run over five innings while striking out six.
He took the loss.
That has been a familiar problem for several Cardinals starters this season.
Pitch well.
Wait for the offense.
Hope something happens.
Saturday proved what the equation looks like when something actually does happen.
Michael McGreevy surrendered a three-run homer to Michael Conforto in the second inning, briefly allowing Chicago to erase St. Louis’ early 3-0 advantage.
Báez answered with his second home run.
Then his third.
The Cardinals kept adding.
McGreevy no longer had to pitch like every mistake might cost him the game.
Starting pitchers notice that.
So do opposing hitters.
Dobbins would certainly appreciate similar support.
He faced the Cubs on July 27 at Busch Stadium, allowing four runs on seven hits in 5⅓ innings.
That gives Chicago some familiarity with him.
It also gives Dobbins information he did not have the first time.
Pitchers make adjustments, too.
Dobbins does not overpower hitters with one dominant pitch. His success depends upon sequencing, location and keeping hitters from becoming comfortable in the box.
He must stay ahead.
Chicago is too disciplined to continually pitch from 2-0 and 3-1 counts.
Pete Crow-Armstrong can change a game with his speed and power.
Seiya Suzuki remains one of the most dangerous hitters in the Cubs lineup and provided Friday’s decisive three-run homer.
Alex Bregman brings experience and another dangerous right-handed bat.
Michael Busch, Nico Hoerner, Dansby Swanson, Ian Happ and the rest of the lineup give Cubs manager Craig Counsell very few empty at-bats.
Chicago has scored 641 runs this season and owns a plus-107 run differential.
That is not an accident.
This is a good baseball team.
Dobbins cannot give it additional help.
Walks become runs.
Poor defense becomes runs.
Extra outs become runs.
He must make the Cubs earn everything they get.
Chicago will counter with Cabrera, who returns to the rotation after missing time with a left hamstring/adductor strain.
His overall numbers are not impressive.
A 5.10 ERA should not intimidate the Cardinals.
His stuff should get their attention.
Cabrera has a fastball capable of sitting in the upper 90s and reaching 99 mph. When he commands it, his velocity can overwhelm hitters and make his secondary pitches considerably more effective.
His problem before going on the injured list was consistency.
Cabrera posted a 3.27 ERA across his first seven starts before struggling to a 7.55 ERA over his next seven.
Injuries interrupted his season, but his rehab work suggests the Cardinals should expect something considerably better than a pitcher carrying a 5.10 ERA.
Cabrera threw five no-hit innings for Double-A Knoxville in his final rehab start Tuesday.
He struck out seven.
He walked one.
He threw 43 strikes among 64 pitches.
His fastball had been sitting around 97-98 mph and reaching 99 during his previous rehab appearances.
Across his final two rehab outings, he allowed one hit over nine innings while striking out 15 and walking one.
That sounds less like a struggling pitcher and more like somebody ready to return.
The Cardinals need to make sure his first Major League inning back is uncomfortable.
Cabrera has not worked a full Major League workload recently.
That matters.
St. Louis should make him throw pitches.
That does not mean standing at the plate with the bat on the shoulder while 98 mph fastballs cross the middle of the strike zone.
Aggressive does not mean reckless.
Patient does not mean passive.
The Cardinals need to identify pitches they can drive and force Cabrera into longer counts when those pitches do not appear.
His workload may be limited.
Make Chicago reach the bullpen earlier than Counsell wants.
That becomes especially important because the Cubs have considerably more rotation depth following their trade deadline additions and the return of injured pitchers.
Chicago added Kevin Gausman and Clay Holmes.
Cabrera is returning.
The Cubs are preparing their roster for October.
The Cardinals sold at the deadline and then decided to keep hanging around the Wild Card race anyway.
That makes this afternoon a fascinating contrast.
One club was built to contend immediately.
The other is becoming younger while trying to discover whether its young players can keep it relevant.
So far, they have.
The Cardinals have won six of their last 10.
They have played themselves back above .500.
And despite everything that has happened this season, they remain close enough to the postseason that scoreboard watching still matters.
Three and a half games is not an impossible deficit in mid-August.
It is also not something that disappears on its own.
The Cardinals must win.
Then win again.
That is why today matters beyond Báez.
Saturday was history.
Sunday is standings.
The Cardinals cannot spend the afternoon admiring what happened yesterday.
They have a series to win.
The season series against Chicago is tied 6-6.
There will not be another Cardinals-Cubs regular-season game after today.
One game decides it.
For a rivalry that has produced more than a century of memorable baseball, that seems appropriate.
There is also the Wild Card.
A win moves St. Louis to 63-61.
A loss drops the Cardinals back to .500.
That difference may look small on paper.
In August, with three teams tied for the final Wild Card positions and another club standing between St. Louis and those teams, every game becomes increasingly expensive to give away.
Dobbins needs to keep the Cardinals close.
The offense needs to make Cabrera work.
The defense needs to protect every out.
And Joshua Báez needs to do something considerably more difficult than hitting three home runs in his debut.
He needs to begin becoming a Major League player.
There will be strikeouts.
There will be adjustments.
There will be days when those baseballs that disappeared into the Wrigley Field seats Saturday turn into routine fly balls.
That is baseball.
What Saturday demonstrated is the ceiling.
What begins today is the career.
Nobody should expect another three-home-run afternoon.
But after what we watched yesterday, nobody is going to look away when No. 22 steps into the batter’s box, either.
Saturday belonged to Joshua Báez.
Sunday belongs to the Cardinals.
Win the game.
Win the series.
And keep the Hunt for a Red October moving forward.
The Cardinal Chronicle, in association with Gateway Sports & MiLB Today
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Photo Credit: Hunter Dobbins, St. Louis Cardinals | MLB