St. Louis Cardinals Jeremy Hazelbaker waves to the crowd as he is introduced on Opening Day before a game against the Milwaukee Brewers at Busch Stadium in St. Louis on April 11, 2016. Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI
Despite General Manager John Mozeliak’s knee jerk reaction to rush out an get another shortstop after Jhonny Peralta got hurt, he lucks out again. With the injury to Ruben Tejada, the Cardinals turned to Aledmys Diaz and the 26-year rookie has not disappointed. He along with Jeremy Hazelbaker have helped kick start an offense that was dormant in Pittsburgh.
34 runs in the last three games. Diaz went 3-for-5 to raise his average to .533 and Hazelbaker went 4-for-4 to bump his average up to .526…these are high school batting averages for crying out loud!!!
For the Royals, Chris Young is not a number two starter…he’s more like a number five and how much longer do they continue to march him out there? His ERA is 7.45 after two matchups that he should have never started…the Astros home opener and last Tuesday’s game against Noah Syndergaard of the Mets. The problem is Ned Yost couldn’t put short fuse Yordano Ventura in a matchup against Syndergaard after what he did to Alcides Escobar in game three of the World Series. He certainly would have sought out revenge. Yost probably didn’t want Ventura jazzed up for another team’s home opener. So he turned to the veteran Young yesterday and the Royals handed themselves two losses, after the Astros bombed Young for six runs in an 8-2 final.
Twin Bill Tuesday is a video feature where each week this season, Missourinet’s Bill Pollock breaks down both the Cardinals and Royals. Follow him on Twitter @Missourisports