Quinn Matthews got his second look in a Cardinals uniform and made it count.
Just a couple of weeks after his first big league start, the St. Louis left-hander was back on the mound for the opening game of the club’s doubleheader against the Cincinnati Reds. Matthews, 25, came in as the Cardinals’ No. 8 prospect and one of the organization’s pitchers most ready to push into the majors, and this latest call-up gave him another chance to show why.
Matthews had already debuted for St. Louis on Aug. 1 against the Toronto Blue Jays, when he gave up two runs and struck out three over five innings.
But because there wasn’t a permanent spot waiting for him in the rotation, he was sent right back to Triple-A Memphis. Returning as the 27th man for the twin bill gave him another shot, and he didn’t hide how much that meant to him.
"Grateful for a second opportunity," Matthews said on Monday, per MLB.com's Mike Petraglia. "You never know if you're going to get one of those or not after the first one. So just grateful to get the opportunity to pitch for the Cardinals once again.”
Even after that solid debut, and even with Chaim Bloom saying he expects the left-hander to help the club down the stretch, Matthews still doesn’t have any guarantees about where the innings will come from. What he did against Cincinnati, though, was make his case louder.
In four innings, Matthews gave up just one run on two hits and struck out seven. That was more than double his strikeout total from his first outing. The only Reds hitter who got much going against him was Dane Myers, who collected both of Cincinnati’s hits, including a solo homer in the fourth.
Matthews took the blame for the one mistake that left the yard.
“I beat him on the fastball, and I kind of beat him on the curveball in a sense. And for some reason, I shook to the slider, and again, that's on me, not anybody else,” Mathews said, per Petraglia.
“That's on me. I shook to that pitch, and that's a learning experience.
“Being a young pitcher that thinks I know how to pitch, and then you know, a guy proves to me that I don't, and that's all right. But a learning experience, and like I said, there's probably other avenues I should have gone after specifically with him … but you throw a bad pitch in a bad location, and good hitters hit mistakes, and that's exactly what he did.”
The Cardinals have already said Matthews is headed back to Triple-A after the outing, but after a performance like this, it wouldn’t be a surprise if he’s back in the majors again before long. St. Louis still got what it needed in the moment, too: a strong showing in a 2-1 win.
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