Spring training baseball is traditionally not about the final score. Veterans are ramping up for the season, plenty of players who won’t be on the big league club are still scattered throughout rosters, and generally the major leaguers are out of the game after two or three plate appearances.
That is, unless you’re the St. Louis Cardinals today being no-hit by the Marlins. Some teams might actually laugh it off, but if there’s one thing the Cardinals take seriously, it’s taking things seriously. With no hits through eight innings, the Cardinals actually left some key starters in with hopes of breaking up a meaningless no-hitter:
#Cardinals are three outs away from a game that dare not speak its name.
Bothers them enough that Goldschmidt and Fowler are going out to play the field in the bottom of the eighth so that they both get an at-bat in the top of the ninth to fend off the rare spring no-no.
— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) March 17, 2019
This is such an on-brand story. The Cardinals decision did pay off, sort of:
Fowler breaks up the no-hitter. Liner to RF. https://t.co/i0rE6D3U4j
— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) March 17, 2019
On the other hand, they did kind of reinforce the idea that they’re an organization committed to not having fun. Fortunately for the rest of us, the Cardinals forced to play Dexter Fowler and Paul Goldschmidt for longer than they would have liked just to avoid a fate only the Cardinals would have really cared about is pretty funny in itself.
