Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Gibson Shines And The Offense Awakens To Beat The Padres

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

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Kyle Gibson was straight up dealing on Monday night and the offense comes to life as the Cardinals get the victory to open up their series against the Padres. This is Locked on Cardinals. You are Locked on Cardinals. Your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked on podcast network, your team every day. Hey there, Cardinals fans. I'm J.D. Hapron and I'm a national radio sports anchor. Born and raised in the Lou and a Lifetime Cardinals fan. And I'm your host for Locked on Cardinals, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. your team every day. You can follow me on Twitter X at JD Sports Radio. You can follow the podcast

at L0 underscore Cardinals. I want to thank those of you who make Locked on Cardinals your first listen every day. We are free and available wherever you get your podcast on YouTube. Make sure you like, subscribe, and comment. That way you're interacting with us. Get the notification button so you know when new episodes are posted. This is a show serving Cardinal Nation and giving the best fans in baseball, all of the info about the birds on the bat. So, How's everybody feeling today after a win on Monday night? I would hope everybody is pretty excited about things and feeling good about everything that happened. If you were able to stay up for the game in San Diego last night, by the way,

the Kyle Gibson apology line starts to the left. And I'm getting in line with you because I am one of those guys who was very skeptical at what Kyle Gibson was going to bring to the table. And I'm guessing there's going to be quite a long list of people who will need to get in that line with me so much that it's going to resemble, I don't know, like a crowd outside of Ted Drews on a hot summer night in St. Louis, because there's a lot of us out there. The Cardinals right-hander shines on Monday night against the Padres. He allows just two runs on four hits. He walks to, he strikes out four. And more importantly, he throws seven innings to lead the Cardinals to victory over the San Diego Padres. and we know that Gibson didn't have the greatest spring, right?

But you know how it goes when you don't have such a great spring. People say, well, you can't rely on the spring training stats. I mean, spring training doesn't mean anything when the stats are not good. When they're good, they're like, hey, this guy's ready to roll. That's how it works. But in Gibson's last start, he looked outstanding. He struck out nine. and that's the guy we were all hoping that we'd get to see.

That's the kind of Kyle Gibson we wanted when this regular season started, and that's exactly what we got on Monday. And boy, was it needed, because the Cardl's bullpen, it got used a lot in Los Angeles. And you can say, you know, hey, should have thrown this guy here and there. But thanks to that rain delay that knocked Lance Lynn out early because he was doing fine. And then, of course, it goes to extra earnings. and, you know, plus you had your normal game situations.

It wore down the bullpen. And then you've got the injuries. You lost Riley O'Brien out of nowhere. And then Keenan Middleton, obviously, another arm that you were going to trust. He's not around. So you're losing some firepower in that bullpen. And you needed Gibson to eat some innings on Monday night. I know you're tired of hearing the phrase already, eating innings.

But it's something that's going to be said a lot. It was even said during the broadcast last night. Eating innings is very important. But to have Gibson go seven innings last night, huge, huge for this team. It allowed the bullpen to get a little rest. And when they did come in, both Jojo Romero and Ryan Helsley, they combined to throw just 15 pitches to get six outs and close the game. Now, sure, you could say, hey, why are we using Helsley when we're up four runs, when Ryan Fernandez has yet to even pitch this season.

But it worked out. So I'm not going to complain too much. I was also wondering that, like, why is Heldley in? But maybe it's something mentally that they were like, let's just get him back on the mound after a rough outing against the Dodgers. Let's just get him into a situation where it's not quite as much pressure as it was in L.A. that night. Let's just see what he's got.

And he showed up. He did great. So Cardinals get the W. So a big W, and it was nice to see the offense come to life as well. Gibson throws just 94 pitches in those seven innings. Dude was just pounding the zone against the Padre's offense that, let's be honest, has a ton of firepower. I mean, go look at that Padres offense and you're like, wow, this is pretty good.

It's not full of a bunch of slap hitters or something like that. I mean, you got some big names in that lineup. He did allow two solo home runs, one to the rookie Jackson Merrill, who's one of the top prospects in baseball, and then one to Fernando Tatis Jr. And that one went a really long way, by the way. That was a bomb. The Carlos pitching staff has now allowed 11 home runs total,

which is the most in the entire league. Again, solo home runs, you can normally live with giving up a couple of those, and Gibson did that and didn't allow any of them to rattle him on Monday night. It wasn't like he gave him up, and all of a sudden he started, you know, know, dancing outside of the zone trying to get people to chase. He just kept going with his game plan, which was to constantly throw strikes. He got a couple of double plays when he needed them.

And when the Padreys hitters did put the ball in play, how about this Cardinals defense? How about this Cardinals defense so far in 2024? They were there making plays. An embarrassment last year, obviously, especially to St. Louis Cardinal standards. You know, we're used to seeing a better quality defense out there. And so far this year, we have not seen an error. by a Cardinals fielder hasn't happened yet. They were up to the task so far here in 2024. And it's nice to watch because it's something us as Cardinals fans are used to. You know, we kind of take it for granted.

They were always going to be a good defensive ball club. And when last year happened and it was like scary bad and made us all kind of question, like what the hell is going on in this clubhouse that they forgot how to play defense? I mean, we got gold glovers all over the place. Like, why, why is this a problem? But so far this year, they've looked like the Cardinals teams that we're used to. Arnana made a couple of nice plays over at third.

Double-played duo of Mason-Win and Nolan Gorman continue to look strong up the middle. Goldie had a nice scoop on a low throw by win during this game. But Donovan continues to be steady in left field. And for all the issues that Jordan Walker has had in his first year or so learning right field, there's a 21-year-old, mind you. Pretty nice play there, the diving play in right field where he kind of gave the Jordan shrug. afterwards, that was pretty cool. It makes me happy to see a guy who's working really hard. You know, he talks about how he's working with Willie McGee each and every day and he's doing his

best to try to figure out how to play the outfield after never playing it his entire life and not being drafted as an outfielder. And we also got to remember, like, this is a kid. Again, 21 years old. And I know we expect perfection. That's just who we are. as a society when it comes to our sports, but the guy is still learning how to play out there. He's still learning the judge fly balls. And there are going to be mistakes. I mean, even the best make mistakes

where you're just like scratch at your head, like, what the hell just happened there? It's going to happen with Jordan Walker for a little while. But to see him make a play like he did in right field last night and to be smiling and having a good time and enjoying playing defense in the outfield, that was cool. That was really, really cool.

So great job. Defensively, great job pitching wise by Kyle Gibson and the bullpen. It was a solid all-round effort by everybody. We're going to get into the offense and talk about how they finally came to life. We'll do that next year on Locked on Cardinals. Fire TV is your destination for sports from live games to highlights to in-depth analysis. Fire TV offers amazing viewing experiences with smart TVs as well as the Fire TV stick that you can plug into your existing TV that provides access. to millions of movies and TV episodes as well as free and live TV, whether it's the,

you know, opening weeks for baseball or, you know, the college basketball tournaments that are going on. Hopefully you watch that LSU Iowa game last night. That was a lot of fun. Before the Cardinals first pitch happened, I was entrenched into that game. Like that was a lot of fun to watch. But for situations like this, you're going to want to have a fire TV. Fire TV recently created Fire TV channels to deliver a constant supply of the latest videos from your favorite sports brands all for free. That includes all of us at Locked On and most of the big pro leagues and college conferences as well. Fire TV channels let you dive into all of the game analysis, the highlights, and more to keep you up to date on all the latest in the world of

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24-7 on YouTube or the free Amazon Fire TV channel. app. It's part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. And thanks for making Locktown Cardinals your first listen every day. You can leave your comments on YouTube as well as on Twitter X anytime you want. Your feedback is always welcome and encourage. Appreciate everybody who stayed up late with me last night. And on Twitter X, we were just having discussions about what was going on with the game. And I love everybody being on there and chatting with each other. We were doing major league quotes with each other last night. You know, we were talking about

how good and how bad certain situations were going. Like, it's a lot of fun, you know, it's basically hanging out with fellow Cardinal fans and just talking ball, which is enjoyable, especially when the Cardinals are winning. And following the Cardinals tough loss on Sunday night to the Dodgers when they blew that 4-0 lead, you know, the message boards and the comment sections were all lighting up with the angry mobs who were carrying their torches once again to fire everybody. This is a disaster. Sell the team, trade all the players.

what are we doing? I mean, you would have thought the Cardinals got T-ball mercy ruled by the Dodgers in four straight games instead of actually almost earning a series split against arguably the best team in baseball. You see what they did to the Giants last night, beat the snod out of them too. The Dodgers are an amazing baseball team. Okay. I don't think people look at the Cardinals and go, that's an amazing baseball team. I think they say that's a solid team. That's a very good team. But the Dodgers are a, at an elite level baseball team. So to be within five outs of earning a split and then losing that game, yeah, it sucks. But at the same time, you got to give the boys credit where after those first two games didn't go so well, they fought back with a huge win on that third game on Saturday night. And then to be right there on Sunday, you know, it's a tough loss. But at the same time, it's not like they got crushed by the Dodgers in those last two games.

you know, I mean, they were right there. But the concerns were understandable. I'm not saying you shouldn't be concerned about things. I'm not saying that at all. But the Cardinals looked completely overmatched against the Dodgers starters in the first three games. That was a problem. That was kind of like, oh, boy, what are we doing here? Strikeout numbers were up.

Only one home run. Two catchers interference calls, but just one home run. But I think we can all admit the Dodgers, okay, they're really good. All right, they're really good. A lot of offenses are going to struggle against the starters for L.A. This year. So to have the bats come to line. life on Monday night against the Padres was a sight for sore eyes. And I think it made a lot of

people feel better. I'm not saying everything was perfect, that I'm sure it made a lot of people feel better about what this offense can do. They score six runs, which isn't an overwhelming amount by any means, but they pounded out 14 hits, eight of them coming with two outs and producing four of their six runs. Remember clutch hitting how bad they were at it last year. Kind of nice to see eight hits coming with two outs, you know, that first inning. All the two two outs. That was pretty cool. They were constantly on the bases throughout the night. Every starter was on base at one point or another, and all of them had a head except for rookie Victor Scott second, who mentioned those major league quotes that we were talking about.

You know, we're at a lot of the Willie Mays Hay stuff where every time he pops it up, he's got any pushups. Maybe that should be a thing for Victor Scott. Get it on the ground, Vic. Leadoff hitter, Brendan Donovan had a monster night. He goes three for four, hit his first denger of the year, two run shot in that sixth inning. He also scored three, times and was just a triple shy of the cycle. I don't know how many triples, Brennan Donovan's ever going to get in his life, but it was nice to see Donnie coming to life.

And when he's on base, things happen. Things happen. That's what makes him a great lead off hitter. You know, he can take a walk. But when he's getting on base and doing damage, that sets things up for the rest of this lineup. No one Arnato. I know he's caught a lot of greed for his rough series in L.A.,

but breaks out a bit. It goes two for five with an RBI double to left, and then he hits a single to right. Good to see him using both. sides of the field. And also a little bit of tough luck in that sixth inning, he hits a missile with 2-1, 102.9 off the bat. But unfortunately, it was right at the Padre's third baseman, but he smoked that ball. Jordan Walker, we talked about pitchers are attacking him on the outside part of the plate because he continued to try to pull the ball in the series against the Dodgers.

They're like, all right, well, if he's going to keep doing that and rolling over on it, we're just going to keep throwing it away. Guess what? My man adjusted. My man. man adjusted the Padres were doing the same thing and he hit two line drive singles to right field. So what do you got next? Okay. Well, how are you going to attack him now? And he also, as I mentioned, had that gorgeous diving catch in the right centered gap, which, by the way, got the Air Jordan stamped by the Cardinals social media. Thumbs up on that one. That was pretty cool. Now we just got to teach Jordan. And when he's going to make those plays, he's got to do the Jordan tongue at the same time, the Michael Jordan tongue. If he gets that going, oh boy, we got something special going on there.

Wilson Contreras, how about Bill and Willie hitting his first home run in the first inning following the two-out RBI double by Aranada, which put the cards up three to nothing. The Cardinals were playing with O'Leod, finally. So that was really cool. Got to mention Matt Carpenter. Got to mention Matt Carpenter. I saw people upset that he was in the lineup last night and people complaining that, like, I thought Matt Carpenter was going to take abats away from people. All right. You got to understand when Matt Carpac, he's in there as the DH, right?

And the reason he's in there is the EH is because they wouldn't give Alec Berlison a night off. He had played a lot here against the Dodgers. And they don't have a new bar. They don't have Carlson. So if there were other people that were going to fill that role, they're not here right now. So Matt Carpenter is somebody who they were facing a right-hander. He knows the Padres pretty well. And lo and behold, Matt Carpenter got on base a few times, had that bunt single against the shift,

which had all of Cardinal Nation saying, see, I told you so, do it more often. He also had another infield single when he got sought off so bad that it looked like he hit the ball with a pitching wedge and it fell in the perfect spot on the infield at a whopping 43.9 miles per hour off the bat traveled 84 total feet. Hey, line drive in the box score, right? So that was fun to see Carpenter doing a little bit of damage, but the Bunt single obviously got everybody really excited. Mason Wend, speaking of Bunt singles. He had one, went two for five in this game, so everyone contributed in some way,

shape, or form. Now, again, not everything is perfect with what the Cardinals did last day. Strikeouts. Strikeouts. All right, guys. 13 more of them last night. Got to cut these down. We got to cut these down. I know a couple of guys like Gorman, they're going to strike out a lot, a lot. And he has two more for Gorman last night, six strikeouts in his last two games, two for Goldie, three for Walker, two for Scott, two for win. I know it's easier said than done, but it's something they got to work on, right? Get the ball and play. Things can happen when the ball's in play. When you strike out, nothing. Nothing happens. You don't put any pressure on the defense. There's no chances it errors or anything just sneaking through. So it's something they'll work on.

they'll get to it. I mean, they were facing a knuckleball or a weird, a weird type of starter last night in Waldron. So, but it's something they'll work on, right? Up next, I want to knock out some positive injury updates. Got a lot of updates on what's going on with a bunch of injured Cardinals because we know we've got a few of them on the aisle right now. So updates on Riley O'Brien and Dylan Carlson, Sonny Gray. We got it all for you coming up. Plus, history in Houston last night. This is locked on Cardinals. The sports calendar is loaded and Fanduels making it even more exciting to get in on the action because right now new customers get $200 in bonus bets with any winning $5 bet. That's $200, guys.

You can use that to bet on the tournament, Major League Baseball, NBA, NHL, how about those blues? That's why I got the hockey sweater on today, the Cardles version of the hockey sweater. But blues beating Edmonton in overtime last night. That was fun. So and all the other sports that are going on right now because there's a bunch. The final four is set. You got two number one seeds left in Purdue and Yukon, the Cinderella story of number 11 seed, NC State, number four seed, Alabama, Purdue, got Zach 80, who's just an absolute beast in the paint there.

They'll take on the wolfback in game one on Saturday, followed by your defending champion Huskies, who are overwhelming favorites to win the whole thing against the crimson tide. So it could be a huge, huge matchup. I would love to see a Purdue Yukon game, but I won't complain if we get an upset because that's always fun in the tournament as well. Get in on the action now with Fandul and make some money. Visit Fandle.com slash Lockdown and make your first bet a big win. Once again, $200 in bonus bets for our new customers with any winning $5 bet. Visit Fandau.com slash locked on and make your first bet a big win with Fandul, America's number one sports book.

Lockdown has launched the first ever national sports 24-7 streaming channel on YouTube, and now it's also available on Amazon Fire TV on the free Fire TV channels app. Locked on Sports Today is here for you 24-7 covering the top sports stories of the day with the local experts of lockdown plus our national shows covering every league. Find Locked on Sports today now available on the free fire TV channels app. So it's no secret the Cardinals have dealt with a hefty number of injuries early on this year. You know, I mean, you can make excuses that they would have been better in that series against the Dodgers if they had everybody on board. It's hard to disagree with that when you're missing Edmund, Newpar, Sunny Gray, Keenan Middleton, Riley O'Brien goes down after pitching one inning. So, you know, these are important pieces to what this team was trying to put together to win this year.

And when things hopefully calm down a little bit, we won't have to give these injury updates quite so. frequently, but at least today's injury news, it's positive on for the most part. No new injuries to report. We're going to start with the latest injury, which was the one to Rattley O'Brien, who was out with the dreaded forearm strain. You get nervous when you hear that. But good news today, according to Ali, the MRI results showed no structural damage. So deep sigh of relief because I was nervous he's going to be gone for the year.

He's not out of the woods yet, but O'Brien being one of the darlings of spring training and he pitched a scoreless inning against the Dodgers on opening day, struck out Shohei Otani, which was great. However, after that was done, reported tightness in his forearm the next day while playing catch. You know, in a similar fashion to the sunny gray injury, though, they were able to shut him down and they caught it early. So perhaps they stopped things from getting even more severe for Riley O'Brien. So that's good. No structural damage. So they'll, you know, get him going accordingly to whatever.

timeline they have, whatever the doctors have to get him back up and throwing here as soon as possible. Dylan Carlson, who's spraying that AC joined his left shoulder a week ago following that hard fall on the warning track is still working to build back strength in his shoulder, has yet to resume baseball activities, but Ali said he'll continue to make progress from a strength standpoint before baseball activity. So he's got to get to a spot where that's in a good place before he starts swinging again and doing other things. take your time Dylan Carlson. We've got Victor Scott the second.

Yeah, he went over last night, but he looks fantastic defensively in center field. And when he is on base, he's so much fun to watch. And he just causes problems for the other team. They really, really bug him. So I'm okay with Victor for a while. So take your time, do everything smart before don't try rushing back.

I also heard Jim Hayes during the telecast last night saying, Tommy Edmund will be getting a lot. an MRI on Wednesday to gauge when he can start doing some things again, start swinging bats. And, you know, that's better than nothing because that's where we've been with Tommy Edmund's just been shut down in general. So it's good to hear that at least if the MRI is good, maybe he could start doing some other things. Lars Newpar is scheduled to start for AAA Memphis tonight in Indianapolis and what could be a short rehab assignment as he recovers from the two non-displaced rib fractures that he

suffered in spring training. He is eligible to come off the engine list as soon as Thursday, the day of the day of the the home opener against the Marlins. Sunny Gray will join New Barn Indy where he is scheduled to start on Wednesday night and throw about 50 pitches. So sunny gray is progressing. So most of that stuff, very, very good news, right? Elsewhere around the league, we had a no hitter in Houston.

Ritey Rodel Blanco throws the first no-no of the season, 30-year-old Dominican, who was moved to the rotation last spring, retired 26 in a row between walks to George Springer in the first and in the ninth inning. He also struck out seven. The Astros just had a no hitter last year. If you remember, Framber Valdez threw a 93-no-no against the Guardians on August 1st to 2023 at Minamade Park. But hey, good for them. And that was the Astros' first one of the season, by the way.

They had to get a no-hitter to pick it up. The Pirates, let's talk about the NL Central real quick. Pirates moved to 5-0 on the season by beating the Nationals. their first 5-0 start since 1983. Where were you in 1983? Were you alive in 1983? The Cubs new starter, Shotai and Managa, who the Cardinals lit up a bit in the spring in those final two games.

He flirted with a no-no of his own over the first five thatings yesterday. Ended up going six, allows just two hits, struck out nine as the Cubs moved to two and two, with a five-to-nothing shutout win over Colorado. I know what you're saying. Oh, gosh, they beat the Garackees good. for them. Oh, the Pirates, they beat the Nationals. Good for them. I know. They're not the best teams in the league, but you still got to go out there and beat them. The Reds come from behind again. They beat the Phillies last night, six to three in extra innings, thanks to a grand slam in the 10th by Spencer Steer. They're now three

and one to start the year. They have like three comeback victories already. Like the Reds so far, doing a lot like they did last year. So keep an eye on them. And then the Brewers, 3 and O, they had the day off on Monday. They'll start their series with the twins today in Milwaukee. So that's what's going on with the NL Central and around baseball. And that's what's going on with the Cardinals. They're back at it tonight.

Miles Michaelis will be on the mound tonight. We're taking on U. Darvish. So not an easy pitcher to go up against you Darvish. look pretty darn good and his first start of the year over in the Soul series against the Dodgers. So hopefully the Cardinals bats will stay hot for tonight's game. Thank you for making lots on Cardinals. You first listen to every day if you haven't already. Give us a follow on TwitterX at L.O. underscore Cardinals and a JD Sports Radio.

Please like and subscribe on YouTube and help our channel and our love for the Cardinals grow. We are making our push for 10,000 subscribers on YouTube. We're getting close to 9500. So slowly but surely, we're getting there. Could use your help. So if you like what you've heard here today, go back, check out some of the other former videos. We have guests on out here all the time. And, you know, we just talk Cardo's baseball.

We try to keep it in a positive light as much as we can. But sometimes the team needs a little spanking. But last night, they look great. A complete win against the Padres is looking forward to tonight's game as well. All right. That's it for me. take care of yourselves. And if you're going to be on tonight,

tonight we've got the game late night again, I'll be off there with you. So make sure you're giving us a follow on Twitter X and at LO underscore Cardinals and the JD Sports Radio. Let's interact. Let's interact during the game. You're the best fans in baseball for a reason and we'll see you next time on Locked on Cardinals.