LOS ANGELES — Several minutes before the Cardinals hitters arrived and took over the field for their off-day batting practice Wednesday, Zack Thompson mostly had the place to himself as he stood on the Dodger Stadium mound.
He’d been there three times before but not like this, not like he would be a few days later as the Cardinals’ starter for the first night game of the year in Los Angeles. He mimicked throwing a few pitches. He checked as if there were runners on the base. He imagined what the place would be like full, loud, and waiting for him to deliver.
“Get on the mound, take in the scenes, and it helps with visualization,” Thompson said. “You get that fresh feeling about, OK, this is what the backdrop looks like, this is kind of how the slope of the mound feels.”
He’d been thinking about that mound all winter.
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What he did from it late Friday night, especially in his third time through the Dodgers’ lineup, was enough for the Cardinals to look forward to his second time out. What happens behind that start is out of his grasp.
Thompson misplaced several pitches and allowed three homers and five runs in the Cardinals’ 6-3 loss Friday to the Dodgers. Around those bruises to the box score, Thompson showed a variety of pitches and a feel for multiple off-speed looks that earned him a chance to face the MVP-laden top of the Dodgers’ lineup for a third time. Mookie Betts drilled Thompson’s first slider of the game for a leadoff homer, but otherwise Thompson did what his teammates could not during Thursday’s opening day. He kept Betts, Shohei Ohtani, and Freddie Freeman — the three former MVPs leading LA’s lineup — to a 1-for-9 night with two strikeouts, one walk, and that solo homer.
“I thought he threw the ball extremely well,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “Well, yes, the line shows that he gave up five. In reality, he did a really nice job. We’ve said it enough — that group across the way is really good. He made a couple of pitches that they got. … He got ahead of guys. He landed his second stuff, slider was in the zone, mixed in some changeups. Kept his composure. I thought he did a really nice job.”
Circumstances started Thompson in the second game of the season.
The Cardinals lined up Lance Lynn for the home opener, which meant using him in Game 3. They didn’t want to stack lefties on back-to-back days and were already committed to getting Steven Matz one more start in spring training because he was already a start behind his peers. That meant Matz for Game 4, and Thompson was set for Game 2. His presence in the rotation at all can be traced back to Sonny Gray’s hamstring injury a month ago that put him on the injured list to start the season and Thompson into the rotation.
It is not a coincidence that Gray’s live batting practice session Friday came on the same day that Thompson pitched, or that Gray will make a rehab start Wednesday with Class AAA Memphis. That night, in San Diego, Thompson is scheduled to pitch. But starts like Friday’s, even with the bloated ERA and three homers, increase the Cardinals’ confidence in having Thompson in some rotation or rotation-related role.
It takes peering behind the line to see it.
Dodgers’ starter Bobby Miller dictated the game. The second-year right-hander struck out seven of the first 10 Cardinals he faced, did not allow a baserunner until the fourth inning, and finished with a career-best 11 strikeouts. During one nine-pitch at-bat against Cardinals right fielder Jordan Walker, Miller challenged him with a 99-mph fastball, a 94-mph slider, a 99-mph sinker, and then blitzed Walker with a 100-mph fastball. When that didn’t end the at-bat, Miller went to an 80.5-mph curveball, and then back to the 100-mph fastball. Walker was caught looking at the strike 3 fastball. Or, maybe admiring is the better verb.
But even with Miller’s overpowering outing, Thompson had more swings and misses than the Dodgers’ right-hander. The lefty got 10 to Miller’s nine.
Three pitches in, however, Thompson was down one.
“The game plan today was to come in and throw the first punch,” Thompson said. “Unfortunately, Mookie threw the first punch. So, I had to adjust.”
He has more ways to do that now.
A year ago, Thompson had a fastball and a curveball that he could count on. Those were the pitches he leaned on as a reliever and pitches he was sometimes only confident in as a starter. This winter, he expanded the number of pitches he has to show hitters. He took his changeup and reduced the spin on it to produce a pitch that is sometimes a forkball. Five of those 10 swings and misses came on that changeup which does drift or veer at times like a forkball.
“Feels like more of a knuckle changeup,” catcher Willson Contreras said.
Thompson tightened his curveball so that he has a harder, sharper breaking ball to go with the classic, waterfall curveball. He also has the harder slider that can be a cutter. On Friday, Thompson threw 87 pitches and had five different pitches. He used each to get ahead in the count. Of the 23 batters Thompson faced, 11 started with a called strike 1, and he got to 0-1 on 14 of those hitters. Seventeen times he got a first-pitch strike, including the hanging curveball Teoscar Hernandez launched for his second homer off Thompson.
That meant that each time he faced a hitter for a second or third time, he had a different sequence and pitch to give them. Betts homered on a slider in the first inning. He struck out on the changeup in the third. Betts worked a walk in the fifth only to see Thompson land a cutter that got a groundball from Ohtani. A strong throw from shortstop Masyn Winn turned that grounder into a double play. And that double play gave Thompson the opportunity to pitch on and become the first Cardinals’ starter to get an out in the sixth inning. He finished with 5 1/3 innings and four strikeouts.
Increasingly, teams are reluctant to use starters for a third time through a lineup. Thompson faced the first five batters in LA’s lineup three times each. They went a combined 3-for-12 with two walks — and that Betts homer. They had some hard-hit balls as well. Victor Scott II turned a Freeman liner into an out in the first inning. But each of the hitters also saw a varied mix of pitches, some for the first time the later they got in the game.
“We have more stuff (for) every at-bat,” Contreras said. “We have more stuff to work with and put in a hitter’s mind.”
And Thompson has had more time to maintain that stuff.
“To his credit, think about being that swing guy, who is starting sometimes and then in the ‘pen,” Marmol said. “You don’t need all of that when you’re coming out of the ‘pen. Staying sharp with it is difficult because you’re in the ‘pen for a few weeks and then, hey, spot start and you’re not sharp with your secondary stuff. Typically, you can be a two-pitch guy and you’re fine.”
That could be the spot where Thompson is headed by the time the Cardinals return from this road trip. He’s scheduled for two starts on the trip, and when he returns his next start coincides with when Gray is eligible to come off of the 15-day injured list.
The Cardinals have discussed a six-man rotation to help navigate a difficult schedule at the start of the year. Thompson earned the spot as the sixth man, if needed, during spring training. If not needed, it’s not clear how the Cardinals would adjust — whether that means Thompson heads to Class AAA Memphis so he can continue starting or relocate to the bullpen, where maybe the time to maintain all of his pitches isn’t available.
The Cardinals have almost as many looks they can give Thompson as Thompson now has to give hitters.
And how long he gets a look at starting is related to Gray’s readiness.
It was three times through Friday.
Which is just as he saw it all winter. Thompson said as he developed the new pitches and worked on them in the offseason, he had the schedule in mind. He had three previous appearances at Dodger Stadium, all of them in relief, and when he spotted the opening series there for 2024 he motivated himself by believing he’d be a starter there.
“Several times in the offseason,” Thompson said about when he thought of Dodger Stadium. “It’s kind of the starting point for a lot of goals this season.”