Carpenter and Williams homer, Flaherty roughed up in intrasquad game
Matt Carpenter looks dialed in during the St. Louis Cardinals’ summer camp as the veteran homered again in Sunday’s intrasquad game.
Jack Flaherty was on the mound for his final tune-up start before opening day against the Pirates on July 24. Junior Fernandez opposed Flaherty, starting the ballgame for the home Cardinals.
Fernandez pitched just one inning and continued to face command problems. The 23-year-old righty walked three batters in the first inning but escaped unscathed.
The home Cardinals took the lead after Carpenter ripped a Flaherty fastball into the right-field bullpen for a solo homer. Carpenter homered on Friday’s intrasquad game as well.
Carp to the ‘pen…again! pic.twitter.com/Waphi8sO6h
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) July 19, 2020
In the bottom half of the third, Flaherty ran into more trouble. Lane Thomas hit a stand-up triple to start the inning, Carpenter drew a walk and Paul Goldschmidt hit a laser up the middle to score Thomas. Paul DeJong followed up with a shot into dead center that bounced in and out of Dylan Carlson’s glove, scoring two more runs.
The third inning came to a close early after Flaherty reached his pitch count. He allowed three earned runs and was tagged with two more runs as a result of the premature ending to the inning.
Paul DeJong drills a two-run double to center and that ends Flaherty’s third inning with fewer than two outs. He ran out of pitches. So that means offense gets two bonus runs, per #Cardinals rollover rules.
Scoreboard shows five runs scored on that inning.
— Derrick S. Goold (@dgoold) July 19, 2020
Flaherty exited the game after the fifth inning. He allowed four earned runs.
The road Cardinals were finally on the board in the fifth inning as Justin Williams blasted a two-run homer off Daniel Ponce de Leon.
Justin Williams just hit a homer into the aisle behind the seats in right that may have had an exit velocity of 146 MPH.
— Jeff Jones (@jmjones) July 19, 2020
The score was 7-2 throughout the first six frames and was then changed to a 4-4 tie. The intrasquad game skipped ahead to the tenth inning, presumably to practice baseball’s new extra-inning rule of starting with a runner at second base.
#Cardinals Red leads #Cardinals Blue, 7-2, through six innings, but due to time constraints we have been notified that the game will move to the 10th inning with a 4-4 tie.
I have no idea how to score that.
— Derrick S. Goold (@dgoold) July 19, 2020
Tyler Webb came on in relief for the home Cardinals to start the tenth. Austin Dean began the inning on second. Andrew Knizner attempted to move Dean over on a bunt, but it turned into an unconventional 2-5-3 double play. Max Schrock flew out to center to end the intrasquad game at a 4-4 tie.
The Cardinals will hold a practice on Monday. In today’s stream, Dan McLaughlin said the team will likely hold one more intrasquad tune-up game before the exhibition matchup against the Kansas City Royals at 3:05 p.m. on Wednesday.
