Much like the supposedly rebuilding St. Louis Cardinals have been one of MLB’s biggest surprise teams in 2026, right-handed pitcher Michael McGreevy has not only defied the odds this season, but he had even outperformed various computer projections while serving as the club’s most consistent and unflappable starter.
Despite having an average fastball velocity (91 mph) than ranked in the bottom six percentile in all of MLB, McGreevy threw six no-hit innings in his first outing of the season and exited April with a sub 3.00 ERA. Following a gem against the Padres just 60 miles away from where he grew up loving baseball, McGreevy’s ERA had plunged to an almost unthinkable 2.18 and it dipped even lower to 2.10 when he frustrated the Athletics over six innings on May 18.
Advertisement
All the while, computer models saddled McGreevy with an “expected ERA” in excess of 5.00. Heading into Friday’s start in Kansas City, those expected ERA numbers swelled to a gaudy 5.53 and one had to wonder if McGreevy’s success felt like a ticking time bomb ready to blow up the faces of the Cardinals.
That unenviable moment came on Friday at Kauffman Stadium as McGreevy was hit hard by the Royals to the tune of five earned runs, eight hits, an opposite-field homer and three doubles in a 6-3 loss to Kansas City.
Combined with Thursday’s 14-6 loss to the Royals that featured Matthew Liberatore’s worst outing of the season, the Cardinals have gotten off to a rough start against their cross-state rivals in a three-game series that will feature a rare day off on Saturday before concluding on Sunday.
Advertisement
For a second straight night, the Cardinals squandered a 2-0 lead and lost for the fifth time in the past eight games. This time around, the Cards grabbed an early lead thanks to a sacrifice fly by Jordan Walker and an opposite-field single by Ivan Herrera.
McGreevy allowed just two hits over the first three innings, but he came unglued in a fourth inning when the Royals – who were without superstar shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. because of a knee sprain suffered a night earlier – scored four times. Five of the first six hitters in the fourth reached base with Lane Thomas and Isaac Collins drilling doubles. Michael Massey, Nick Loftin and Collins all reached after McGreevy had gotten ahead in counts, and had two strikes on them, but he couldn’t put them away.
In the fifth inning, lefty slugger Jac Caglianone worked the count to 3-1 and then drilled a 92 mph four-seamer 404 feet the other way for a homer. The ball left Caglianone’s bat at 110.5 mph and it was such a no-doubter that Lars Nootbaar hardly moved in left field as the ball sailed over his head and over the fence. It was Caglianone’s second home run in as many nights and his seventh opposite-field homer of the season.
Emblematic of their feistiness all season, the Cardinals refused to go quietly in the ninth inning. Shortstop Masyn Winn doubled in Lars Nootbaar and red-hot rookie Blaze Jordan followed later in the inning with an opposite-field single that plated Winn and Nelson Velazquez to get the Cards within 6-5.
Advertisement
However, the rally ended there as pinch-hitter Jose Fermin grounded in a force out to end the game.
Remember to join our CARDINALS on ROUNDTABLE community, which is FREE! You can post your own thoughts, in text or video form, and you can engage with our Roundtable staff, as well as other CARDINALS fans. If prompted to download the Roundtable APP, that’s free too!
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sports.yahoo.com ’
