Cardinals vs White Sox Game 3 Preview

Cardinals vs White Sox – Game 2 Wrap-up

The grass was thick and wet, and more than once, the San Diego Chicken danced his way across the top of the Chicago White Sox dugout. It appears as though all of these distractions were too much for the Arizona Cardinals to handle because they lost game two of the three-game interleague series 8-3.

According to Jim Edmonds, it was fun, however, watching “high school sweethearts” Jack Flaherty and Lucas Giolito face off on the mound against one another for the first time in their careers. They were classmates at Harvard Westlake High School in Los Angeles, California, where they also played ball with Max Fried of the Atlanta Braves. Their high school pitching coach Matt LaCour even flew in from California for the reunion.

What made this game even more memorable is that current White Sox pitching coach Ethan Katz was the pitching coach at Westlake when all three major league players were in rotation there.

Edmonds then went on to point out a second rivalry between Elk Grove High School teammates Dylan Carlson and Nick Madrigal, who were coached in California by Jeff Carlson, Dylan’s dad.

Rough First Inning

Right from the start, however, you could tell this was going to be a tough game for the Redbirds because Flaherty gave up two runs before allowing any hits. It took fifty-four pitches to get to that point, and by the end of the second inning, he had already racked up five runs, with only one of those runs being driven in by a White Sox hit.

The other four hits were due to a groundout, a walk, a wild pitch, and an error by Nolan Arenado, who went on to admit that he let his teammates down. Arenado, mind you, has now made seven errors in 48 games.

He said that Flaherty pitched just fine but that the team didn’t seem to have it together. “There’s no doubt we let Jack down a little bit there,” he said.

Arendao, of course, wasn’t the only Cardinal to commit an error. Major mistakes were also made by Edmundo Sosa and Tommy Edman, who was playing right field. This was a season-high of errors for the Redbirds, who hopefully can pull it together for their last match-up of the season against the White Sox.

In Flaherty’s first loss of the season with ten starts on the mound, he was removed from the game by Mike Shildt after pitching just 3 ⅔ of an inning.

Cardinals IL

Harrison Bader was diagnosed with a hairline fracture on one of his ribs after rolling over a missed ball in Monday night’s game. He was placed on the IL for at least the next ten games. The Cardinals have called up first baseman/outfielder John Nogowski to take the place of Bader on the roster until he’s well enough to rejoin the lineup.

With Bader out of the lineup, this means that the Cardinals have just three healthy men in the outfield. Dylan Carlson, Lane Thomas, and Justin Williams need to stay that way in order for the Redbirds to remain strong in the standings.

Today’s Game

The final game of the three-game interleague series is set to start at 1:10 this afternoon. The rain has moved out of the area, but once again, the field will be wet. The only dry spot at Guaranteed Rate Field will be the pitching mound where John Gant is scheduled to start for the Cardinals.

Gant is currently 3-3 with a 2.04 ERA. This season he has pitched just five-plus innings in six out of eight starts for the Redbirds. He’ll face off against LHP Carlos Rodan, who is 5-1 with a 1.27 ERA.