{"id":682447,"date":"2026-04-25T12:54:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T12:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/682447\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T12:54:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T12:54:23","slug":"cardinals-struck-gold-with-early-gordon-graceffo-promotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/682447\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Struck Gold With Early Gordon Graceffo Promotion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6i\">The St. Louis Cardinals dropped their second straight game on Friday night as they faced off against the Seattle Mariners. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6l\">St. Louis put up a fight against a very good pitcher in George Kirby, but wasn&#8217;t able to get over the hump as the club fell, 3-2. Andre Pallante gave the club a chance to win. He pitched 5 1\/3 innings and allowed three earned runs against the Mariners. Nolan Gorman and Masyn Winn both had multi-hit games as both went 2-for-4. Also, don&#8217;t look now but Winn is on fire at the plate right now. Winn has a nine-game hitting streak and has gotten multiple hits in each of his last four games. Over the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/gl.fcgi?id=winnma01&amp;t=b&amp;year=2026\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">last nine games<\/a>, Winn is slashing .400\/.436\/.629 with a 1.064 OPS along with a homer and 10 RBIs. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6o\">Despite the loss, another guy who deserves his flowers right now is reliever Gordon Graceffo. The 26-year-old didn&#8217;t make the big league club out of Spring Training, but was quickly promoted. Graceffo got the call on March 31 when Matt Pushard was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/mlb\/cardinals\/onsi\/st-louis-cardinals-news\/cardinals-flamethrower-gets-early-look-with-matt-pushard-to-injured-list-pat3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">placed on the Injured List<\/a>. Since then, he has made 10 appearances for St. Louis and has been simply lights-out. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6r\">This was the case on Friday as well. Graceffo got the final two innings of the night for St. Louis and didn&#8217;t allow a base hit or run in 23 pitches. With another scoreless outing, Graceffo lowered his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gracego01.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">season ERA down to 0.66<\/a>.  <\/p>\n<p>The Cardinals Hurler Is Breaking Out<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/01kq2a93197j2xesc8h0.jpg\" alt=\"St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Gordon Graceffo\" title=\"St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Gordon Graceffo\" width=\"6158\" height=\"3463\" class=\"undefined w-full w-full blur-[5px]\" q:id=\"74\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Apr 1, 2026; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Gordon Graceffo (44) pitches against the New York Mets during the eleventh inning at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images | Jeff Curry-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"78\">Graceffo has a 0.66 ERA and an 8-to-6 strikeout-to-walk ratio across 13 2\/3 innings pitched on the season so far in total. In comparison, he had a 6.28 ERA in 26 appearances last season for St. Louis in the majors. Last season, Graceffo started the season off slowly in general. He had a 6.62 ERA across his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/gl.fcgi?id=gracego01&amp;t=p&amp;year=2025\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">first 10 appearances for the Cardinals in 2025. <\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7b\">So, right now we&#8217;re seeing a guy seemingly find his footing in the majors right in front of our eyes in real time. That&#8217;s the point of the 2026 season in general. The more young guys who take steps forward, the quicker this reset period will be.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7e\">We&#8217;ve talked a lot about guys like Winn, or Jordan Walker, or JJ Wetherholt. But it takes more than just a few guys to have a good team and turn things around. Graceffo is a perfect example. He&#8217;s pitching so well right now that he&#8217;s gone from missing the Opening Day roster to being integral to the club in a short time. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The St. Louis Cardinals dropped their second straight game on Friday night as they faced off against the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,160,4,673,67,4311,4310],"class_list":{"0":"post-682447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cardinals","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-st-louis","12":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","13":"tag-stlouis","14":"tag-stlouiscardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116465452677632632","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}