Cardinals Come Out Of The Gate Firing On All Cylinders in Opening Day Rout of Victoria Red

The Cards opened their regular season schedule with a thunderous BANG on what turned out to be a beautiful, sunny day at Carnarvon Park in Victoria on Saturday. All the anticipation leading up towards Opening Day culminated into an offensive explosion, as the Cards scored early and often.

CARDINALS 11 VictoriaRed 0 (5 innings)

It didn’t take long for the Cards to assert their dominance over the Eagles’ pitching. The heart of the order strung together 4 straight hits, leading towards a 5-run first inning. That huge start sparked the boys to play full with energy for the remainder of the day. Hendriks got the start and exploited the early cushion, turning in 3 quality innings before handing the ball off to Kang, who struck out 5 of the 7 batters he faced. Together, the pair of 03’s from Coquitlam pounded the strike zone, throwing strikes more than 75% of the time and not walking a single batter. The Cards excelled in all facets of the game to pick up the win in game 1, but their job was far from done.

CARDINALS 18 VictoriaRed 2 (5 innings)

The scoreboard reverted back to all zeros for the start of game 2, and the Cards didn’t take anything for granted. The bats didn’t roar out of the gates quite like they did in game 1, but they still gave starting pitcher Crozier a 2-run lead to work with heading into the bottom half. Victoria cashed in on a lead-off triple to score their first run of the day, making it clear that they weren’t planning on going down without a fight. This time around, the spark the boys needed was provided by a clutch burst of power from the bottom of the order in the top of the second. Fukuoka’s two-hopper off the fence scored 2, and Yuen later drove in 2 more that inning. They added 6 more runs in the third to firmly take control of the game, which allowed plenty of room for lots of pitchers to see some action. Powell, Miles and Turnbull each got in an inning of work, neither one facing much trouble as the Cards completed the sweep of the Eagles.

Saturday was a dream first-time outing for the Cards. 11 different players had hits as the team pummelled Victoria pitching for 33 hits on the day, 8 going for extra bases. The performance of the day goes to Yuen, who picked up 7 of the Cards’ hits and reached base all 8 times he stepped up to the plate. With all West Coast pitchers fresh and available, the boys wearing their bright red button-up Cardinal jerseys will look to carry this momentum into Nanaimo tomorrow (Sunday).