Flaherty holds down fort in pitchers' duel

Jack Flaherty was well aware of what Stephen Fife was doing across from him Thursday night in New Orleans, but the Memphis right-hander kept focusing on his own work. In the end, that was enough.
The fifth-ranked Cardinals prospect allowed just two hits and a walk over six shutout innings, striking out eight and keeping the Triple-A Redbirds in their series finale matchup against a stellar Fife, in a 3-2 comeback victory over the Baby Cakes.

"As a starting pitcher, you want to go out every time and keep your team in the game, give them a chance to win," said Flaherty, who watched his counterpart take a perfect game into the seventh. "Their guy was throwing really well. For me, I just tried to keep us in the game and go as deep as I could."

New Orleans notched its first hit against Flaherty in the bottom of the first inning when Chad Hinshaw singled to left field with one down and Destin Hood followed one out later with a single to left. From there, hits were hard to come by for either side. As Fife retired the first 18 he faced, the 2014 first-rounder set down 16 of the final 18 batters he saw, coming up with an answer for each quick half-inning Fife posted.
"It can go one of two ways where maybe you need some extra time and he's throwing well and gets a quick inning and you're back out there," Flaherty explained. "Or you're throwing well and you just want to get back out on the mound. He has a quick inning and you get back out there. You're hoping that you get more time [in the dugout]. The more time you get, that means the offense is producing, but on a night like tonight, you just can't try to do too much. I just had to keep going and try to pitch my game and try to keep the team in it. I was able to do that."
The Burbank, California native issued a walk to Mike Aviles with two outs in the fourth and Ramón Cabrera reached on Memphis second baseman Breyvic Valera's fielding error to lead off the fifth. That was all the traffic Flaherty saw in his final five innings as the scoreless deadlock continued. Flaherty struck out at least one batter in all six of his frames in his second Triple-A start, registering his third-highest K total of the season.
Gameday box score
"It just felt like one of those games where you're able to execute with two strikes," said Flaherty, who has struck out 75 in 12 outings between Double-A Springfield and Memphis. "There are a lot of times when you get two strikes and you can execute, and the guy's still going to put the ball in play. Sometimes you're just going to get those swings-and-misses. That's just kind of how it is. There are days when those two-strike pitches are swings-and-misses, and there's other days where they put those balls in play and you're just hoping for weak contact. Really, you're just trying to get guys out as quickly as possible."
When he left after tossing 61 of 99 pitches for strikes, the 21-year-old righty had completed at least six innings for the 10th time in 12 starts this year.
"I just really try to go out and get ahead of guys, try to establish my fastball early," Flaherty said. "If you're able to get ahead and show that you can throw anything for strikes, you try to get outs as quickly as possible. Strikeouts are nice, but if you can get a guy to roll over on the first pitch -- an out's an out. That's where that philosophy goes."
Despite his effort, Flaherty wasn't in line for a win until the Redbirds finally broke through after his final inning.
"Their guy was throwing well, but the whole game, everybody was upbeat, really positive energy," he said. "We knew all it was going to take was one hit. In the seventh when (Todd) Cunningham got that first hit, it just felt like we were going to score in that inning and keep scoring."

Memphis did. Cunningham bounced a leadoff single to right field to break up the perfecto in the seventh, and Nick Martini followed with a single to left. Luke Voit roped an RBI double to plate Cunningham, and Martini came home on an RBI groundout to short by No. 2 Cardinals prospect Carson Kelly.
Perfect through six, Fife's night ended after seven. The righty was charged with two runs on three hits while striking out seven without a walk.

Memphis' advantage held only briefly. Brandon Barnes clubbed a two-run homer to right-center off Redbirds reliever Mark Montgomery (2-0) to push Flaherty out of a decision, but the Redbirds recovered. With one out in the eighth, Cunningham's sacrifice fly to center scored Valera with the eventual game-winning run.
"Our bullpen was lights-out," Flaherty said. "It didn't matter who was coming in the game. They were going to hold it down."
Josh Lucas pitched a scoreless eighth and Sam Tuivailala struck out a batter in a perfect ninth to earn his fifth save.