Tuesday night’s game followed a similar trajectory for the St. Louis Cardinals, who coughed up a late lead against the Tampa Bay Rays and dropped their eighth game in their last 11, falling to a record of 49-65.
A key moment in the game was manager Oli Marmol’s decision to pull Miles Mikolas after just 80 pitches in the eighth inning.
The veteran right-hander had allowed a leadoff triple, and Marmol went to Andre Pallante, later citing that he was hoping for a ground ball in that spot.
Pallante allowed two runs as the Rays won, 4-2.
On Twitter, Cardinals writer Brenden Schaeffer called out this decision by Marmol and explained why he disagreed with it.
Oli Marmol talked, as shown on the Bally postgame, about not wanting Mikolas to face Diaz again, which is fair. His logic behind Pallante was going for the groundball.
I don't share the Pallante logic unless you're going to give him a chance to turn one grounder into two outs…
— Brenden Schaeffer🎳 (@bschaeffer12) August 9, 2023
Marmol had mentioned not wanting Mikolas to face Yandy Diaz again, as Diaz had three hits off the right-hander.
Schaeffer explained that the only way using Pallante would have made sense was if he was brought in to get a ground ball for a double play.
The Cardinals instead hoped that any ground ball wouldn’t get through and chose to play the infield in.
Schaeffer mentioned how since last year’s Wild Card Series loss to the defending National League champion Philadelphia Phillies, bringing the infield in has not worked well for St. Louis, and that wagering that it would work with consecutive batters is an approach he didn’t agree with.
As has been common this year, the Cardinals strategy backfired on them and ultimately cost them the game as they dropped their series opener against the powerful Rays.
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