CINCINNATI — When next you see Steven Matz pitch at Busch Stadium on Wednesday against his original team, the New York Mets and assuming many of you didn’t see him on Apple TV on Friday night, he isn’t likely to resemble the pitcher who gave up seven runs in three innings in his Cardinal debut on April 10.
Since that poor introduction to the home fans, Matz has taken his show on the road, displaying why the Cardinals invested four years in the left-hander. He blanked the Milwaukee Brewers on three hits over 5 2/3 innings on Sunday and then, on Friday against the Cincinnati Reds, he eluded danger throughout his five-inning stint, giving up just one run, albeit seven singles, in a 4-2 Cardinals victory.
The Cardinals won their eighth game out of 12. The Reds lost their 10th in succession, which is their longest losing streak in six seasons. They are 2-12 and already all but out of the division race after two weeks.
Remarkably, all but one of the hits in the game were singles — 18 out of 19 with one ninth-inning double — in a shooting gallery of a facility at Great American Ball Park.
The plan appeared to be to attack early against hard-throwing Reds right-hander Hunter Greene, who didn’t throw anything faster than 97 mph all night after unleashing a record 39 over 100 mph in his previous start.
Dylan Carlson singled to left off 96 on the second pitch and Paul Goldschmidt turned around 95 with a single to left center. When former Cardinal Tommy Pham couldn’t stop it, the ball rolled to the fence and Carlson came around to score on the error.
The Cardinals would load the bases later in the inning on walks to Nolan Arenado and Tommy Edman, but Lars Nootbaar was called out on strikes to end the inning.
Carlson, who reached base in each of his first three plate appearances, singled off first baseman Joey Votto’s glove to load the bases against Greene in the fourth after the 22-year-old had walked Nootbaar and hit Edmundo Sosa with a pitch.
Goldschmidt, who had three hits, singled hard to left off reliever Jeff Hoffman to score both Nootbaar and Sosa, and send Carlson to third.
Pham threw home when he should have fired to second and Goldschmidt wound up there but Hoffman pitched out of further trouble. Nootbaar, however, made it 4-0 in the fifth with his first hit of the season, a single to score Corey Dickerson, who also had singled and moved up on a walk to Edman.
Matz pitched around two first-inning singles as he fanned two hitters. He pitched around two more singles in the second by virtue of his inducing Colin Moran to ground into a double play started by shortstop Sosa.
Matz got help in the third from third baseman Nolan Arenado. Arenado backhanded Brandon Drury’s hard grounder and, still on the move, whirled and threw across his body, virtually from the third-base coaching box, to nip Drury at first.
Matz, handling three grounders himself, did not allow a fly ball to be hit to the outfield through five innings as he also fanned six on a mixture of fastballs, curveballs and change-ups. He had allowed seven fly outs in his previous game.
In the fifth, Matz again played in traffic as he walked Aramis Garcia and gave up a single to Moran. But Matz recorded his second double play, started by Arenado, on Kyle Farmer’s grounder. He did give up a run-scoring hit to Drury but fanned Pham on a curveball after getting him on a fastball in the first. Pham would strike out three times, in all.
Matz left after giving up his seventh single — to Voto — to open the Reds’ sixth. Nick Wittgren walked pinch hitter T. J. Friedl but prevented scoring.
Ryan Helsley continued his lights-out pitching. The right-hander, throwing as high as 99 mph but showing a cutter and curveball, too, struck out three of the four men he faced in the seventh and eighth, giving him 13 in 5 2/3 scoreless innings over six games.
Left-hander Genesis Cabrera hit Votto with a pitch in the eighth but retired the next two hitters. Giovanny Gallegos staggered in the ninth, giving up a run on two hits, including Moran's double. But he gained his fourth save in four tries.
