ST. LOUIS — A tipping point in the Cardinals’ weekslong program to build Jordan Hicks into a starter arrived Tuesday night, and with it came a great reckoning on a big role.
In the days leading up to Hicks’ start against Toronto, manager Oliver Marmol identified it as the game in which decisions would shift from how many pitches Hicks needed to throw to increase his stamina to, simply, how Hicks pitched. He had started games, but this would be the first game in which he’d be treated as a starter – able to pitch as long as his performance earned.
He did not get an out in the fourth inning.
Hicks’ shift from former closer to current starter hit a speedbump when he had fewer swings and misses than walks in the Cardinals’ 8-1 loss to the Blue Jays at Busch Stadium. A compelling show featuring Toronto right-hander Kevin Gausman’s six shutout innings became a farce late when the Cardinals committed a series of misplays while already trailing by six or seven runs. The Cardinals walked eight batters. Hicks allowed four runs, three on a homer off the left-field foul pole, and he complicated his outing with five walks. For the second time in as many starts, he spent most of his time on the mound with more balls thrown than strikes.
On Shakespeare Night at the ballpark, Hicks had the stage all to himself – no innings cap, no pitch limits – and his lackluster performance invited a classic dilemma.
To start or not to start – that is now the question.
Hicks (1-4) walked the leadoff batter of the game on four pitches, walked the leadoff batter in his first two innings, and he still had the overpowering stuff to sidestep the trouble bubbling. Why he’s so tantalizing as a starter for the Cardinals is because he can walk a batter, allow two singles, and escape an inning with a 100-mph sinker to get a groundout. He did that in each of the first two innings, and the retired the side in order with two strikeouts in the third.
He couldn’t outpace the traffic Toronto created forever.
In the fourth inning, Hicks clung to a 1-0 game and let it slip from his fingers. A leadoff single and walk brought Danny Jansen to the plate with two on. The Blue Jays’ catcher turned on a flat, spinning full-count slider and pulled it high and deep and lofting to left field. The foul pole was the Cardinals’ last line of defense, and baseball clanged off of it for a three-run homer. Jansen added a second homer later in the game off Drew VerHagen for his third multi-homer game of his career.
With Toronto holding a 4-0 lead, Hicks faced the batter after Jansen, No. 9 hitter Raimel Tapia. The right-hander walked him on five pitches, missing on three consecutive sinkers.
Exit Hicks.
As he increased his pitch count and innings over each of the previous four starts, Hicks also talked about losing some of the command of his pitches. He has felt increasingly confident with a changeup he’s been workshopping, but his slider and fastball has sometimes misbehaved. Hicks traced that back to his delivery and specifically the timing of his front foot. In each of starts this season, stretching back six as the Cardinals made the decision to build his arm strength on the job, he has walked at least two batters. The walks have increased to eight over his past seven innings pitched. In his start last week in Queens against the Mets, Hicks threw more balls (43) than strikes (39). Wherefore art thou, command?
He was close to an encore Tuesday night when through his first 29 pitches he had thrown 17 balls. Through his first 37, he’d thrown 21 balls.
He finished with 40 strikes in 78 pitches and – in his first chance to pitch as deep as his success would take him – threw fewer pitches than his previous start.
Gausman (4-3) walked two in the first inning and the slipped free with a strikeout of rookie Juan Yepez with Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado on base. A two-out double in the second inning also yielded nothing else. A two-out single in the third by Goldschmidt extended his hitting streak to 16 games – and then stranded him at first base to shorten his commute for defense. Toronto’s right-handed pitched most of his game with a 1-0 lead from Teoscar Hernandez’s first-inning RBI single. But after Goldschmidt’s single, Gausman’s innings lacked any drama. He struck out eight Cardinals, including four of the six he faced around the time Jansen’s homer gave him a larger lead.
Toronto widened it further in the sixth by hitting for the cycle.
Tapia started the inning with a single off reliever Nick Wittgren. Leadoff hitter George Springer got the triple when right fielder Brendan Donovan lost a liner in the lights, slide, and had it go over his reach and to the wall. A sacrifice fly scored Springer to clear the bases for Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Guerrero, the son of a Hall of Famer, had an MVP season by many measures in 2021, and it took the peerless excellence of a pitcher who also hits home runs – Shohei Ohtani – to keep him from claiming the honor. This season has come slower to Guerrero.
When he faced VerHagen in the sixth inning, Guerrero had gone 71 consecutive plate appearances without an extra-base hit. He had not homered in 15 games.
VerHagen’s 95-mph fastball up in the zone ended both streaks.
Guerrero sent his eighth homer of the season over the left-field wall to push Toronto out to a 7-0 lead. Jansen led off the seventh with a solo homer, and the Blue Jays led 8-0 before the Cardinals eked across a run on Donovan’s RBI single. Four of the eight runs the Cardinals scored in the split, two-game visit from the Blue Jays came on Goldschmidt’s walk-off grand slam Monday. In the series, 10 of the runs scored came on home runs. The Cardinals did not hit one Tuesday as they played catchup.
What was done could not be undone.
