New York @ St. Louis preview
Busch Stadium
Last Meeting ( Apr 16, 2010 ) NY Mets 3, St. Louis 4
Ten games doesn’t qualify as a definite answer but David Freese is showing signs of patching up that ugly black hole at third base that plagued the St. Louis Cardinals most of last season.
Freese has eight hits in his last 16 at-bats and is settling in as the Cardinals’ every-day third baseman as the team hosts the New York Mets in Saturday’s second game of a three-game series.
Freese, who turns 27 later this month, won the starting job in spring training. He’s batting .367 through his first 30 at-bats and is hitting .833 (5-for-6) with runners in scoring position.
St. Louis (7-3) had trouble at the position last season after losing Troy Glaus to a shoulder injury. Brian Barden and Joe Thurston didn’t work out early in the season and the Cardinals eventually acquired Mark DeRosa from the Cleveland Indians to fill the hole.
DeRosa left as a free agent and signed with the San Francisco Giants and the door was open for Freese, who never really was in the mix last season after he suffered a heel injury stemming from an offseason car accident.
But signs are there that the player the Cardinals pilfered from the San Diego Padres in exchange for Jim Edmonds is ready to place a stranglehold on the third base position.
Freese went 3-for-4 in Friday’s opening game against the Mets and made an important defensive play that helped assure St. Louis’ 4-3 victory.
The Mets (3-7) had runners on second and third with two out in the eighth when New York’s Fernando Tatis blistered a ball toward the third-base line. Freese caught the liner to end the inning and save two runs, which carried extra importance after New York scored twice in the top of the ninth.
Freese has had three consecutive multi-hit games and will face a tough task Saturday in seeking to make it four straight with New York sending ace Johan Santana to the mound.
Santana (1-1) was sharp in his first outing against the Florida Marlins (one run, four hits in six innings) but struggled in his second when the Washington Nationals roughed him for five runs in five innings.
Santana is 2-0 with a 2.63 earned-run average in three career starts against the Cardinals.
Pitching for St. Louis is 23-year-old Jaime Garcia, who is making his third career start. Garcia went six innings in his lone 2010 start, holding Milwaukee to one run and four hits over six innings.
In Friday’s game, New York’s Jose Reyes batted leadoff despite manager Jerry Manuel’s comments from earlier this week stating that he was considering using Reyes in third spot of the lineup against the Cardinals. Reyes went 0-for-5.