After a rainy day, the Cardinals balance routines with double headers
Matthew Liberatore wasn’t scheduled to start in either game of Wednesday’s doubleheader against the Phillies, and his day to throw a between-starts bullpen won’t arrive until Friday.
That meant, despite his very busy teammates, he had a little free time in the morning, so the St. Louis Cardinals’ breakout lefty starter ended up with perhaps the most arduous task of all in preparation for the day: a television appearance.
After standing on the field in driving rain covered only by an umbrella held by a staffer, the 6-foot, 4-inc Liberatore reported, the better part of an hour later, that he was still trying to dry out. No amount of rain will relocate the MLB Network’s fixed hard cameras in ballparks, and there’s no warming up for a TV hit down in the cage.
Liberatore’s teammates differed in their preparation methods. Some, who knew they were bound to play at least 18 innings throughout the day, made some tweaks. Some, who figured they’d show up at some point, were learning to be flexible. In the middle of it all, the Cardinals’ strength and conditioning staff was preparing to guide the team through its fourth doubleheader of the season, the earliest point in the year at which they’ve reached that milestone since 1963.
“They have to load me up with a lot of caffeine,” manager Oli Marmol cracked from his Citizens Bank Park office when asked about how the team manages the workload of a doubleheader. Rarely seen without a cup of coffee even before a night game, the manager is surely more than capable of getting himself ready to go; it’s the players who require some special attention.
“Our guys do a really good job,” he added. “Even our young guys have really good routines as far as taking care of their bodies. I was in [the training room] this morning, and they’re all coming through doing their body work. They’re on top of it.”
Indeed, the biggest crimp in the day for Marmol was arguably in deciding how to sequence his starting pitchers, veterans Erick Fedde and Sonny Gray. The Cardinals opted to throw Fedde in the early game and Gray in the nightcap largely due to deference to Gray’s routine; he has a protracted schedule of events for prep to which he’s always committed, and with rain still pounding the ground on Wednesday morning, the Cardinals opted to displace Gray as little as possible.
Fedde, who was always scheduled to throw a day game here on Wednesday, already had his timing sighted in. And if he was slightly inconvenienced by the schedule shuffle, he at least fared better than rookie reliever Matt Svanson. Added as the team’s 27th player for the doubleheader, Svanson said he missed Tuesday’s last direct flight from Memphis to Philadelphia by an hour and instead found himself connecting through Charlotte, reaching the team hotel at around 2 AM Wednesday.
Still, he said he was without complaint – a day in the big leagues is always worth the hassle.
Brendan Donovan, in the lineup at second base against Phillies started lefty Jesús Luzardo in game one, could look down the road at righty Aaron Nola set for the nightcap and predict with confidence that he would be shuffling from the infield to the outfield as he played both games. Awareness was the first step in his preparation, but the rest would stay largely the same.
“I think it starts the night before, getting a good night’s sleep,” Donovan said. “You do your prep, but you just do it a little abbreviated. So for me, it’s just a couple less reps, maybe just one set routine [in the weight room], maybe not as many swings…try to take a little nap between games, if there’s time. If I’m feeling alright, I try to hit between games. I just get hot again, and go from there.”
Phil Maton was in a different position, not knowing whether he’d be called upon to pitch in the first or second game, or perhaps not at all. The weather, too, put a wrinkle in his plans; Maton called his daily session of playing catch “the most important 15 minutes of my day” as he gets a feel for the ball and the strength of his arm.
Without space to throw inside or the ability to dodge the deluge, he nonetheless headed out slightly later than usual, getting loose ahead of executing his routine in the first game as though he would definitely be used then.
“It’s hard to manage the workload, because you’re going to be throwing a lot regardless,” Maton said. “Ideal scenario you throw in the first one, but it’s baseball. You never know what’s going to happen.”
Maton’s in-game routine begins with plyometric ball work around the fifth inning and progresses from there. He planned to repeat the routine in the second game, if necessary, and Thursday’s scheduled off day in Kansas City provided him with a little bit of cushion for recovery.
The doubleheader did, however, put a small crimp in the traditional cheesesteak eating derby which takes place in the visiting clubhouse. Without confidence of when they’ll be playing, the valiant gladiators in that contest were unable to attack the leaderboard with the same ferocity. A reliever set atop the leaderboard as of pregame Wednesday; whether he’ll be there at the end of the day might well depend on whether he’s called upon to pick in the first game.
That, at least, is prep work from which the strength and conditioning staff will steer well clear.