Monday night’s 4-0 blanking of the Cleveland Indians marked the 10
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Number 10,001 might come a bit tougher on Tuesday night.
That’s because St. Louis (41-36) will have to deal with Cleveland ace Corey Kluber in the middle game of the teams’ three-game interleague series at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.
Kluber (11-3, 2.10), who at this point might be a favorite to win his third American League Cy Young Award, is coming off one of his standard dominating outings. In a 12-0 win Wednesday against the Chicago White Sox, Kluber permitted just one hit and one walk in seven innings, fanning seven.
Following a rare hiccup in a June 15 loss to Minnesota, which touched him for four hits and four runs in five innings, Kluber was back in form.
“It seems like every five days, you try to come up with something different to say,” Indians manager Terry Francona said to mlb.com. “But his level of consistency is so high that, man, it’s just fun to watch.”
The Cardinals got a taste of Kluber’s level of consistency three years ago on a cold May night in Cleveland, and it went down about as well as a bottle of pesticide. Kluber fanned 18 and walked none over eight innings, ceding just one hit in a 2-0 victory that was the highlight of a 9-16 season hampered by a lack of run support.
That St. Louis lineup bore little resemblance to the one that Kluber will face Tuesday night
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Carlos Martinez (3-4, 3.24) has seen his earned run average double since coming off the disabled list on June 5, failing to make it past the fifth inning in four straight starts. Martinez was pummeled for eight hits and seven runs, five earned, over four innings of an 11-3 defeat Thursday night in Milwaukee.
But St. Louis manager Mike Matheny says Martinez is getting closer to the pitcher that pitched to a 1.62 ERA in his first eight starts.
“I thought his stuff was better last game than his line suggested,” Matheny said of Martinez. “He knows how close he is to getting locked in, so I’m excited to see him pitch tomorrow.”
Martinez, who will face the Indians (43-34) for the first time in his MLB career, has usually delivered shutdown efforts in interleague outings. In 16 career games, 12 of them starts, against American League competition, Martinez is 4-4 with a 1.97 ERA.
The Cardinals became the seventh MLB franchise to reach five figures in victories with a good all-around outing. They held an explosive offense to four hits, scored all their runs with two outs and played a clean game defensively.
“I’d take that every night,” Matheny said. “Give them a zero, give us a few runs and I’ll trust our bullpen. Guys came through with big hits. We did a lot of things right … it was a big day.”
For victorious sports teams these days
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What used to be one of the most innocuous photo-ops in sports is anything but. Going – or not going – has become a political statement in the era of President Donald Trump, who has managed to draw athletes into his game, whether they want to play or not.
”If you do go, you’re associating yourself with his policies,” said Howard Bryant, author of ”The Heritage: Black Athletes, A Divided America and the Politics of Patriotism.” ”If you don’t go, you run the risk of branding yourself as not having enough respect for the office.”
This week, Trump canceled a White House celebration for the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles after it became clear very few players planned to attend.
Trump instead went to his go-to play: attacking as un-American the NFL players who have knelt during the national anthem to protest police killings of black men. (In truth, none of the Eagles took a knee this past season.)
In the NBA, both the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Golden State Warriors have already rejected a White House celebration, however their championship matchup turns out.
And the Villanova Wildcats – this year’s NCAA men’s basketball champions, who also won in 2016 and celebrated with President Barack Obama – will have to decide, if an invitation comes, whether to return to Washington for a ceremony with Trump.
”Sports are not a distraction from politics – they are politics by a different means
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Before Trump took office, one of the biggest fusses to emerge from a White House victory celebration was the great flip-flop incident of 2005, when the Northwestern University women’s lacrosse championship team wore the sandals to meet President George W. Bush.
In snubbing the Eagles, Trump praised other championship teams that have attended White House celebrations during his administration, among them the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Houston Astros.
Athletes are now being put in the position of taking a patriotic litmus test during their shining moment of victory, said Cornell University professor Grant Farred.
”It’s incredibly difficult for these athletes, and not a choice they have imposed on themselves,” Farred said. ”A reporter is asking you about your win, and you’re now having to deal with an obviously political question, not of your making. It’s not a good situation to be in, one way or the other.”
Asked about the feud on Wednesday, the Eagles tried to move on. Rather than answer reporters’ questions, safety Malcolm Jenkins silently held up poster boards referring to problems he has worked to change
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For two years, the NFL protests have divided fans, largely along racial lines, and given Trump a powerful issue with which to fire up his core supporters.
During the season, the president referred to the protesting players as ”sons of bitches” and suggested at a rally in Alabama before a mostly white audience that they be fired. Last month, in response to the NFL owners’ decision to punish kneeling, Trump said players who continue to protest ”maybe shouldn’t be in the country.”
Farred said that while Trump is likely to return to the issue, he risks overplaying his hand: ”How many swing voters can he afford to alienate?”
The question could come up again soon, with the Washington Capitals on the verge of winning the Stanley Cup against the Vegas Golden Knights. Though they may have to confront the question of whether to go to the White House, for most of the players, their patriotism would not be at issue.
Only three of the Capitals are American.
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