The St. Louis Cardinals walked away from Friday’s game against the New York Mets with a 9-3 loss. However, the game was as good as over when Pete Alonso took Sonny Gray deep in the fifth inning, forcing Oliver Marmol to pull his starter after just 4.1 innings pitched.
Marmol and Gray are optimistic so far this season, especially the 35-year-old tries to step up as the Cardinals’ ace. The righty is doing well so far this season; Friday’s game was just his first loss of the year. Unfortunately, he picked a poor opponent to have a bad showing against. Clay Holmes and the Mets pitchers held St. Louis’ offense to only three runs in a dominant effort. All it took was a couple of miscues from Gray and the Cardinals couldn’t recover.
Gray reflected on his performance after the game when talking to MLB.com’s Joe Harris. He said that he was trying to do too much, especially against Alonso.
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“With Alonso, got him 0-2, and I just didn’t execute,” Gray said. “I think I was probably trying to be too cute there in that one. But I called something that is not normally what I would do, maybe trying to overthink it, or do something, and it wasn’t right.”
When he is on top of his game, Gray is capable of going toe-to-toe with the league’s best pitchers. Unfortunately, his best stretches are few and far in between at this point in his career. St. Louis might need to trade in order to bring in someone who can be their ace.
Every game against a National League opponent is important for the Cardinals, even early in the year. They are only a handful of games behind the leaders in the NL Central. Gray hopes to put a bad day behind him as St. Louis prepares for a double header to wrap up their series against the Mets.
