Jordan Montgomery Got Traded To The St. Louis Cardinals And Naturally Became The Best Pitcher In All of Baseball

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Jordan Montgomery made his fourth start with the St. Louis Cardinals last night —he threw a one hit complete game shutout that was also a Maddux. In his first 25.2 innings with St. Louis, Monty has given up one run…

Actually laugh out loud funny how this one has backfired.

The southpaw heading to the Cards in exchange for a Harrison Bader, a player who is still in a walking boot and MIGHT help them in September, was a trade that never made any sense. There's good reason to believe Cashman thought he had a deal for Miami's Pablo Lopez lined up which fell apart at the 11th hour. That stings. It hurts even more now to see the start Montgomery has gotten off to with his new team. 

It seems St. Louis saw Monty not using his fastball enough and decided to change up his pitch mixI The results speak for themselves so far. 

The latest update with Bader? Well, we've got this quote from an NJ.com article

“They don’t really know where (the injury) is at, so they want to take me out of it for a time and put it back in. Tomorrow looks a little different based on how I respond. So it is very meticulous. It’s very boring. But it is necessary. That’s kind of where I’m at, but it’ll be worth it because there will be a time where I will be able to put these pinstripes on and do what I do.”

Great. Now I will say if Bader does in fact arrive in September he will provide this team with value. Aaron Hicks' horrendous play has phased him out of playing time and rendered him an option off the bench at best. Whenever Bader is good to go he'll provide this team with gold glove centerfield defense and energy. His bat isn't his calling card, but it's almost impossible for him to be worse than Hicks right now. When he comes off the IL, however, remains to be seen and puts further question into the trade. 

As I said when the trade went down there's this faction of Yankee fans who hate Jordan Montgomery despite him being one of the team's more reliable starting pitchers over the last few years in terms of durability and consistency. Their response was they don't see him as a viable playoff pitcher and to their credit Monty was struggling bad before the trade (13 ER in 18.2 IP). It doesn't help that Montas hasn't looked himself since coming over from Oakland, but at least Domingo has found his stride in the recent weeks. 

I don't think the organization or the fanbase thought about the impact Monty's sudden trade would have on the clubhouse. 

I think it's clear to see that a lot of the guys in the clubhouse really liked Monty, a player who had been with the organization since he was drafted in 2014. It makes sense the locker room was a bit shook for a few days/weeks following that trade and helped create their slump. Hopefully the last few games that have resulted in wins against Manoah and Scherzer show they're over it and ready to get back on track. I fucking hope so. 

Overall I'm stoked for Montgomery having this success over with a new team and I hope it continues. That's a good dude they got over there who will pitch his balls off for them everytime he's out there. I just pray Harrison Bader plays this year and gives the team an added boost in September and October.