Less than a week into the 2023 season, there are plenty of MLB news stories to discuss, including tidbits with the St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox, and Toronto Blue Jays.
St. Louis Cardinals: The hits just keep coming, but so do the losses
The bad news for the Cardinals? After another loss to the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday night, the Cardinals now sit in the bottom of the National League Central standings at 2-3. The good news? The offense is still producing despite the losses, and doing it at a historic clip.
#stlcards have at least 10 hits in five consecutive games to open the season for the fourth time in club history, the first time since 1966, per club's research.
— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) April 5, 2023
(Other years: 1956 and 1901. The most consecutive 10-hit games to open a season: seven.)
They trail, 4-1.
Much of the issues in St. Louis have come on the pitching side in the early going, including a shuffling of the rotation with Adam Wainwright starting the season on the injured list. There was some additional good news for the Cardinals on Tuesday night as reliever Giovanny Gallegos made his first appearance of the season, shaking off some early lower back issues. He threw a scoreless frame against the Braves, striking out two in the process.
MLB news: War of words brewing between Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays
Don’t look now, but an American League East rivalry is seeing the heat turned up as Alek Manoah of the Toronto Blue Jays and Alex Verdugo of the Boston Red Sox are exchanging their thoughts on each other’s play.
It started with Verdugo’s recent comments on Audacy’s Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast. You can hear the conversation here, including an interview with Verdugo at the 7:25 mark where he shares his thoughts on the Blue Jays pitcher.
“Like I’ll say it right now, I think Alek Manoah goes about it the wrong way, 100 percent I think he does,” Verdugo said. “You can find videos of him, footage of him in Triple-A going like this to hitters. Last year, telling Franchy and Bobby like go sit, s–t like that and looking right at them. So it’s like, s–t like that just pisses me off. It’s not the way it should be played. It should be played like you’re celebrating it with your team, you’re not f——g disrespecting another player who is – at the end of the day we’re just trying to compete, that’s it.”
It didn’t take long for Manoah to respond back, shrugging off not only the comment but the source of it as well.
“Coming from him? I don’t give a sh–.” Manoah told the Toronto Sun on Tuesday.
“My job is to pitch and get guys out.”
Toronto and Boston meet for the first time this season when a four-game series kicks off at Fenway Park on May 1.