In Cardinals’ opener vs. Dodgers, 2 brands looked as feared

LOS ANGELES — If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.

Paul Goldschmidt’s swing snapped free from its spring training slump. Victor Scott swiped his first of what will become many major league steals. And while no one back home wants to hear it, these Dodgers are going to make a lot of opponents look overmatched. Oh, and the weather was as great as the gas prices out here are high.

That’s the rosiest picture to paint from the Cardinals’ 7-1 season-opening loss to the Dodgers.

The winner looked every bit as dominant as feared.

The loser looked every bit as pedestrian as feared.

Two iconic NL brands played up and down to broad-brush expectations.

The cynic will remind you he told you so. The pragmatist will remind you that while game one feels like it carries a football game’s worth of meaning, it really makes up 0.6 percent of the season. The optimist will remind you that even the hardest-working farmers sometimes are no match for a swarm of angry locusts.

“Yeah, that stinks, right?” Miles Mikolas said after his spring-training jab at the Dodgers’ big offseason spending was followed up with the Dodgers scoring five earned runs against him in 4.1 innings.

Mikolas, everyone wearing blue remembered, made a spring camp stir when he colorfully compared the Cardinals to hardworking farmers while taking a swipe at the “checkbook baseball” Dodgers. Word spread. So much so that Mikolas was booed during his introduction at Dodger Stadium.

Yes, on a day that included a blue-carpet introduction to under-investigation Shohei Ohtani, a multiple-plane flyover and a rare early arriving crowd crammed with celebrities, there was a special recognition of Mikolas’ comments. He was the only Cardinals player audibly booed.

“Money talks, right,” Mikolas said after the defeat. “I ended up on the losing side of that one. Talk a little smack here and there. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that.”

Mikolas complimented the fans for letting him hear it, then gave them a new reason to ridicule him, when he took what sure sounded like a fresh jab at baseball’s ongoing investigation into Ohtani after the superstar’s interpreter was fired due to alleged involvement in illegal betting.

“I’ll play the Vegas odds, I’ll roll the dice, I’ll bet on that all day, that weak contact is going to turn into outs,” Mikolas said. “So, you know, I’ll just keep rolling with that.”

The Dodgers don’t need bulletin board fodder to bludgeon.

Batting first and second and third for Dave Roberts, Mookie Betts, Ohtani and Freddie Freeman on Thursday combined to go five-for-eight with four walks, one double and as many home runs (two) as strikeouts. There’s a reason they cash those big checks.

“Look,” Paul Goldschmidt said, “their roster is probably as good as any roster that has ever been put on a major league team.”

Criticize Mikolas all you like, but you’re going to have to score runs to beat these Dodgers, and the Cardinals failed to do so – unless it was Goldschmidt swinging the bat. He had three hits including a solo homer. His teammates had none, and just one walk. Watching it stirred memories of the 2021 wild-card loss here, perhaps because such pregame pomp and circumstance was followed by such lineup fizzle.

Dodgers opening-day starter Tyler Glasnow’s first pitch of the game was a 95 mph fastball to Cardinals leadoff man Brendan Donovan, who the PA announcer kept calling Brandon. Donovan’s swing whiffed. Tone set. An afternoon of awkward and uncomfortable swings continue.

Glasnow’s fastball hummed. His slider disappeared. He looked every bit of an ace.

The Cardinals looked like a team forced to start a No. 3 starter on their opening day because the potential ace they signed, Sonny Gray, got hurt at spring training, and because they stopped short of adding two starters better than Mikolas this offseason instead of just one in Gray. No offense to Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn, but if the Cardinals thought they were better options than Mikolas, one of them would have started here Thursday. I’m sorry to ask this once again, but it was on my mind as this game got out of hand and Scott Boras, baseball’s most powerful agent, watched from one of the most exclusive seats in Dodger Stadium.

Would the Cardinals have had a better opening day outcome if Jordan Montgomery made this start? More importantly, would they have a better season if he was in this rotation? The Cardinals were not, the Boras camp confirmed, in the mix on Montgomery down the stretch of a free agency that finally sent him to Arizona.

The Cardinals during spring training were of the mindset that Montgomery wanted too much. Too many years. Too many dollars. Well, he signed with the Diamondbacks for one year and $25 million with a vesting option for 2025. Doesn’t sound like too much.

We’ll find out what Montgomery can do against this Dodgers lineup now that he shares their division. Boras headed for the exits at the top of the ninth inning. The Cardinals were down six.

Let’s end with one more piece of nice news. There’s another game Friday night. And it’s worth just as much.

“We still have three here,” Mikolas said. “We’re not an easy team to beat four games.”