'Grateful' Quinn Matthews Shines In Second Career Outing

Though Matthews performed admirably in his debut and Chaim Bloom himself said that he expects the left-handed hurler to help the team down the stretch, there are still no guarantees on playing time. Fortunately, Matthews made the most of his opportunity against the Reds.

Despite only pitching for four innings, Matthews impressed in his second outing with the Cardinals. The 25-year-old allowed only one run on two hits while fanning seven batters, more than double his tally from his debut. The only Red player who could find any success against Matthews was Dane Myers, who recorded both hits, including a solo home run in the fourth inning.

“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.”

Matthews will have plenty of other learning experiences early in his career similar to this one, but the young pitcher still had a big impact in the Cardinals' 2-1 victory. St. Louis has already announced that the left-handed hurler was being optioned back down to Triple-A, but it wouldn't be surprising to see him pitching in the big leagues again this season.