CHICAGO — The Cardinals went into the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader hoping right-hander Johan Oviedo could give them his best for 100 pitches, not thinking that one of the worst calls would help take the game from them.
In the seventh inning of a 6-1 loss to the Cubs at Wrigley Field, as the Cardinals trailed by four runs and teased a rally, Tommy Edman came to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs. He fell behind 0-2 in the count but worked it full against Cubs reliever Scott Effross. The right-hander’s sixth pitch started outside of the strike zone and never appeared to enter it — except, that is, to one set of eyes that matter, home-plate umpire Bruce Dreckman’s.
He called Edman out.
Edman fumed.
A boiling point for the Cardinals’ dugout.
When Jake Woodford started the bottom of the inning with a pitch tickling the edge of the strike zone and Dreckman called it a ball, Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol shouted a technicolor burst of criticisms. He tossed the iPad in his hand, and then he took steps to illustrate the strike zone to Dreckman. Literally. During his argument on the field, Marmol bent down and framed home plate with his hands, and then shifted to draw where Effross’ pitch to Edman had actually gone in relation to the plate.
Dreckman, of course, ejected Marmol.
Marmol received his first career ejection while also attempting to make his first career ejection. At least twice, he made the hand gesture to toss Dreckman from the game.
Up to that point, the game had been rather uneventful for the Cardinals.
That was both a good thing and a bad thing.
Oviedo pitched past a balk in the first inning to get through five innings and hold the Cubs to three runs on eight hits. Oviedo covered enough innings to keep the Cardinals’ bullpen integrity for the night game and he got better as he went in his 19th career start. He did not, however, get his first major league win because the offense was equally uneventful. Oviedo’s streak of 19 starts to begin a career without a win ties the club record in 2020 by Daniel Ponce de Leon.
Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt extended his on-base streak to 40 games, but his hitting streak stalled at 25 in part because he only had two at-bats to add to it.
Goldschmidt struck out in the eighth to finish 0 for 2.
In the bottom of the second inning, right fielder Corey Dickerson had some hesitance headed out to his position and was quickly joined by a trainer. Dickerson attempted to run and was removed from the game with discomfort in his left calf. That brought Albert Pujols into the game — but before he had time to tie on cleats. He played a half inning at first base in running shoes, and he batted somewhere he never did as a starter for the Cardinals: No. 9.
Cubs starter Matt Swarmer held the Cardinals to one run on two hits, and he struck out five. The one run the Cubs sneaked against the right-hander was Edman’s solo homer in the sixth inning. The ball remained in the basket above right field for the remainder of the game.
That gave the baseball a clear view of the pitch that irked the Cardinals.
In the seventh, the Cardinals got the lineup back around to Edman with singles by Brendan Donovan and pinch-hitter Harrison Bader. Bader’s liner up the middle chased reliever Brandon Hughes from the game and forced the Cubs to go with a second pitcher to try and get the second out of the inning. Effross struck out Andrew Knizner to bring that Cardinals’ No. 9 hitter the plate.
That is, the three-time MVP in his 3,000th career game to the plate.
Effross walked Pujols to load the bases and try his stuff against Edman.
Turns out, he had an edge he didn’t expect.
It was the one on the outside of the plate, more than a bat’s length away from Edman. It was the one Dreckman gave him on a full-count pitch.
A bases-loaded walk would have guaranteed only one more run to Cardinals and narrowed the game. There’s not guarantee it would have changed the outcome.
