Michael McGreevy pitched into the seventh inning in Phoenix on Friday night, allowed six hits and one earned run, walked one and struck out five, and got nothing for it. He left with a 3-2 lead, watched the bullpen give it back, and finished the night 4-7 with a 2.92 ERA.
That record is the story. The Cardinals have a 4.11 team ERA, which means McGreevy has spent the season running more than a full run better than the staff he pitches for, and has 11 decisions to show for it with four wins. Pitcher wins are a poor measure of pitching, and this is roughly the cleanest demonstration of why: the run support has been thin, the leads have been small, and small leads are exactly the kind that get handed off in the seventh inning.
Friday’s game did eventually go St. Louis’s way — the Cardinals won 5-4 — but the winning pitcher was Luis Gastelum, who allowed two runs in the eighth, and the save went to Riley O’Brien. McGreevy’s six and a third innings on 1 walk are the reason there was a game to win in the ninth, and none of it shows up in his line.
The execution underneath the record is real. One walk in 6 1/3 innings at Chase Field, against a lineup with Ketel Marte and Corbin Carroll in it, is the kind of start a rotation is built on. McGreevy is not a strikeout pitcher — 71 in 108 2/3 innings entering the weekend is a modest rate — so his margin comes from throwing strikes and letting the defense work. When he does that, St. Louis gets six or seven innings and a bullpen that starts fresh in the late innings. When he doesn’t, there is no strikeout to bail him out of a jam.
St. Louis is 51-45, 8 1/2 games behind Milwaukee, and squarely in the group of teams that will decide in the next two weeks whether Aug. 3 is a buying or selling deadline. A cost-controlled starter with a sub-3.00 ERA is an asset either way, which is a comfortable position for a front office and an uncomfortable one for a pitcher.
For fantasy managers, McGreevy is the classic case of a pitcher whose ratios are better than his reputation. The wins will not come, but the ERA and WHIP will, and in leagues that count quality starts he has been quietly excellent. He is worth rostering in 12-team mixed formats and starting in most matchups — just do not draft the record.
