Notes: Gomber shines in duel vs. Flaherty

ST. LOUIS -- Austin Gomber hadn’t pitched at Busch Stadium since the Cardinals' playoff push in late 2018, but the left-hander looked like he hadn’t missed a beat in Tuesday’s intrasquad game.

Gomber and Jack Flaherty locked into a pitching duel early in the scoreless six-inning tie between Cardinals Red and Cardinals Blue. In four innings and 55 pitches, Gomber retired the first 11 batters he faced and struck out four of them. Out of the 14 batters he faced, he threw 10 of them first-pitch strikes, and seven of the nine balls put in play against him didn’t leave the infield.

After going 5-0 with a 2.38 ERA in August 2018, Gomber was ready for more until soreness in his shoulder and left biceps left him on the injured list for most of last year. He tried to make it back for the end of 2019 by building arm strength and hoping to get in game action with a Cardinals affiliate in the playoffs, but there were none. So he ended his season and began his offseason earlier than most, allowing him more time to work on a new pitch: a slider. With help from analytics and talks with Flaherty, the pitch morphed from the cutter he learned from Jason Isringhausen in 2018 to the slider he flashed Tuesday. It was a swerving option for right-handers to swing over and paired well with the vertical, 12-6 curveball.

“I just felt like that was the one thing that I could do better,” Gomber said. “The one glare. I’ve always had a good true curveball, and I just felt like adding a slider or something would just benefit me because I just didn’t have anything that did what that pitch did and didn’t have any way to give that look. And from there to now, just trying to figure out spots that it works.”

The Cardinals now are tasked with finding a spot for Gomber. He’s a backup starter, but the Cardinals want to maximize his usage. That could mean as a middle reliever who comes in to eat innings or a late-inning lefty who comes in to throw strikes in big spots.

“It’s obviously exciting any time you feel like you could be in a position to help the team win games,” Gomber said. “I think with everybody just being flexible and being versatile is what this season is going to be about. As long as you’re present and ready to do everything, knowing every day could look completely different.”

Hicks was unlikely to pitch this year
Jordan Hicks, who opted out of the 2020 season Monday because of pre-existing health concerns, had suffered recent inflammation shortly after he threw a bullpen session on July 4, and that partly led to his decision to opt out, manager Mike Shildt said Tuesday. The reliever’s original target date to start facing live hitters again after recovering from Tommy John surgery was going to be Aug. 18, but the inflammation shut him down and pushed the target date back to September. At that point, it would be hard for him to return to Major League games.

“The likelihood of Jordan being able to compete got pretty remote,” Shildt said. “It was a very little to almost zero chance that he was going to be able to come back in a game setting. Once that kind of got crystallized, we had fluid conversation. I support him completely. He’s a higher-risk guy, he wasn’t going to be able to necessarily compete, he was able to do things in a rehabilitation center in concert with our staff where he didn’t have to be necessarily present.

“He wasn’t going be able to pitch this year. It didn’t make sense to necessarily be here just for the sake of being here. So we support him, and we’ll stay in touch with him.”

Hitters in ‘good place’
After Flaherty and Gomber pitched, reliever Tyler Webb recorded six outs with only 14 pitches for Cardinals Blue and John Gant had six swings and misses out of 14 pitches, fanning three in his one inning for Cardinals Red. On both teams, Cardinals pitchers struck out nine in six shutout innings and allowed only one extra-base hit -- that bounced off the second-base bag. The pitching overmatched the hitting, but Shildt said that that’s not necessarily indicative of where Cardinals hitters are in their readiness for games.

“Candidly, you’re talking about a group of guys that pitched very well today,” Shildt said. "I thought the pitching was good, but I do think we had some offensive opportunities. I think our offense is in a pretty good spot too.”

Flaherty needed 75 pitches to get through four innings and praised the Cardinals hitters for working tough at-bats against him. Flaherty worked five three-ball counts and ran the count full three times.

Camp notes
• To no one’s surprise, Flaherty will be the Cardinals’ Opening Day starter, just as he was slated to be in Spring Training. Shildt told Flaherty a few days ago. The Cardinals open the season on July 24 against the Pirates at Busch Stadium.

Shildt "should probably be the one to tell you but… oh well,” Flaherty said.

• The Cardinals had a few spectators in the stands for Tuesday’s game: Chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. and president Bill DeWitt III. The father-son duo took in the game in red seats on the third-base line about 14 rows up from the dugout. Most of the Cardinals starters who weren’t pitching also sat, socially distant from each other, in the stands right behind home plate.

• Tuesday was the first game fans could watch on a live stream, and it was also the first game the Cardinals had umpires behind the plate and in the field.

• Shildt said that Dexter Fowler (back soreness) and Brad Miller (heel discomfort) will likely be back in intrasquad lineups Thursday. Wednesday’s workout will be live batting practices and sim games.