When he marched off the mound after three consecutive strikeouts to atomize the Cincinnati Reds’ best chance yet to upset his evening in the third inning, Lance Lynn let loose of something other than a fastball. A bountiful cornucopia of active verbs and technicolor nouns that cannot be reprinted here erupted from behind his beard.
Catcher Pedro Pages guessed he’d been holding that in all inning.
Even longer, Lynn said.
“Been pent-up for 30 days,†he said.
The Cardinals’ veteran right-hander returned to the mound Wednesday with a roar. Slowed by an angry right knee for the past five weeks, Lynn pitched around back-to-back singles in the third and kept going with his bulldozing fastball. He held the Reds to one run on five hits, struck out seven, and bought enough time with the Cardinals’ foolproof bullpen for the offense to rally. Nolan Arenado’s solo homer was the Cardinals’ lone run for the first 17 innings against Cincinnati until Paul Goldschmidt’s RBI double in the eighth sent them toward a 2-1 victory at Busch Stadium. Ryan Helsley cemented it for his 44th save.
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The win put the Cardinals (73-72) back above .500, where they’ve balanced 16 times this season, and ended a four-game losing streak to the rival Reds.
For the first time since July 30, it started with Lynn.
“I love watching him pitch,†manager Oliver Marmol said. “It’s just – fiery dude. Yells at everything. The way he goes about it ignites a little fire in everybody.â€
Through the midpoint of the season, Lynn pitched with soreness and discomfort in his right knee, but by late July it had ballooned with some swelling and pain. He went on the injured list to give it rest and then steadily built his way back up for a return to the rotation. Lynn wanted to be able to throw 85 pitches in a simulated game before moving to a rehab start, and he wanted to reach 85 pitches there. When he threw his 85th pitch of the game Wednesday, he allowed a single that put two runners on for Reds’ switch-hitting start Elly De La Cruz.
The 85-pitch threshold was one the Cardinals wanted to inch past cautiously, so Marmol made his way to the mound to possibly remove Lynn.
The dude who yells at everything did not yell anything.
“You got anything left?†Marmol asked.
“I’ve got plenty left,†Lynn replied.
Marmol was asking for that moment.
But the question and answer hold for a career.
Lynn struck out De La Cruz and got a fly out to end the fifth and complete his start. The strikeout from De La Cruz also completed 2,000 innings pitched for his career. Lynn is the sixth active pitcher to join the list, joining contemporaries Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Johnny Cueto, Charlie Morton, and Clayton Kershaw. The number that describes, in bulk, a long, successful career as a starter, is one Lynn knew he had coming.
“I felt every one of them,†he said.
He was pleased he got to another milestone first.
“Two thousand strikeouts are pretty cool, especially when you do that before the 2,000 innings,†he joked.
And he was happy to have done both as a Cardinal.
That was part of the appeal of coming back.
“When you’re old and you play long enough, you get the luxury of having fun milestones like that,†said Lynn, who returned to the team that drafted him in 2008 on a one-year deal for 2024. “I’ve had a few this year. Obviously, it’s been great to be able to do it in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, where it all started. That was one of the reasons why it was enticing to come back to hit those milestones here. I’m very proud of those – to do them in a Cardinals’ uniform.â€
More than 1,000 of those innings came as a Cardinal, and after a career spent slinging fastballs he of course put the finishing touch on inning No. 2,000 with … a curveball. Lynn froze De La Cruz with the breaking ball no one expected for the 6,000th out of his career.
He threw curveballs in the game.
All of them went to De La Cruz.
“Showed him a couple of bad ones in the first, so I could use it later in the game when I needed it,†Lynn said, and then added color to his commentary. “Show him the (crud) that isn’t worth a (crud) in the first and then have something left later.â€
To get to the 2,000th inning, he had to first get through the third.
Lynn’s return to the rotation began perfectly until back-to-back singles flared up on him in the third inning. One of the tender hits came on a changeup, and Lynn was so furious with the pitch that he put it in timeout. He would not let it come out and play. Instead, he did what he’s done for 13 seasons and 205 games (183 starts). He chucked fastballs. He shifted the grip on his fastball to sink it a bit. He’ll shift it over and cut it a bit. Or, he gripped it and ripped it and let it rise with the old steam-train, four-seam fastball.
“He hates soft hits,†catcher Pedro Pages said. “That got him going.â€
With two runners in scoring position and a scoreless tie in the game, Lynn needed 11 pitches to end the inning. He struck out the two batters at the top of the Reds’ lineup – leadoff hitter Jonathan India and De La Cruz – on six pitches to finish the inning. India saw a mix of sinkers and four-seamers that he couldn’t track. De La Cruz saw only four-seam fastballs.
Three of them.
They ranged from 93.1 mph to 93.7 mph.
He connected on none of them.
“He has three fastballs,†Marmol said. “They all do different things. The four-seam has good ride on it and where it’s coming from is not your average fastball. The sinker-cutter mix – it’s hard to cover all three. You’ve got to protect and at times he can just beat you with the four-seamer. He’s done that for a long time.â€
Said Pages: “He didn’t want to give in. Nothing cheap like already giving those two hits. He was mad. That’s why he let some words out there go.â€
He still had words left in the fifth. A leadoff walk started the trouble that became turbulence with a stolen base and a single up the middle. Three batters into what would be his final inning, Lynn had runners at the corners, one out, and a manger walking out to the mound to visit him. The question Marmol posed goes for more than the game at hand.
There are 17 games remaining in the season – which could give Lynn two or three more starts, depending on how the Cardinals fit their seven starters into their final weeks. Most of the rotation, from Sonny Gray to Steven Matz, remains under control for the 2025 season. The Cardinals have choices for two veteran starters. Kyle Gibson and Lynn both have options for the 2025 season, and if the Cardinals are looking for the easiest way to start changing the roster or saving money they could walk away from both $12-million salaries.
Lynn being on the IL to finish year would likely make the decision.
Returning to the rotation is just the start of his season-ending push for what’s next that coincides with the Cardinals’ 11th-hour attempt to shock the standings and reach the playoffs. Lynn is trying to answer in September the question asked of him in the fifth inning Wednesday. Anything left? He said it’s important to provide an honest answer.
“When you don’t have anything left, you make sure you tell the truth, and when you have something left you make sure you get the outs,†he said. “It means you trust the old guy.â€