Cardinals and Marlins Decide to Play All Day
The Cardinals and Marlins looked like they were going The Iowa Baseball Confederacy on us, playing 20 innings today. Unfortunately for the Cubs, the Cardinals won 7-6. One of the players making such a long game possible was former Cub Jeff Fassero.
The Cardinals were up 5-1 heading into the bottom of the 9th. On came Fassero. He faced 4 batters, giving up 3 hits, including 2 homers. Russ Springer completed the blown lead and the game went into extra innings (a lot of extra innings). The Marlins even resorted to putting tomorrow’s starter – Carl Pavano – on the mound. Pavano lost the game.
Back to Fassero, though. He now has a 9.35 ERA in 8.2 innings pitched. Fassero, you’ll likely recall, pitched well for the Cubs in 2001 (3.42 ERA), but terribly for them in 2002 (6.18 ERA).
The Cubs usually end up with other teams’ castoffs. How is that the Cardinals of all teams (as opposed to, say, the Brewers) ended up with two Cubs‘ castoffs this season? The other being Joe Girardi, who has yet to play because of an injury (though, if you’re a Cardinals fan, that’s better than him actually playing).