St Louis Cardinals Brendon Donavon has been part of the wrecking crew against San Francisco Giants pitching. Donavon (right) is congratulated by teammate Matt Carpenter (13) after hitting a solo home run in the bottom of the seventh inning in the second game of their three game meetings this one on Sat June 22, 2024 (AP News photo)

On the SF Giants podcast with Stephen:

#1 The San Francisco Giants started this three game series in Birmingham on Thursday for the Negro League/Willie Mays tribute at Rickwood Field in Birmingham. The St Louis Cardinals got a jump on the Giants with three runs in first inning and another two runs in the bottom of the second and Giants starter Keaton Winn pitched 2.2 innings, giving up five hits and five earned runs. The Giants wound up losing the first of three meetings 6-5.

#2 The Giants were playing the Rickwood game on the heels of the passing of legend and all time baseball great Willie Mays who had passed away two days before the Tribute game in Birmingham.

#3 The Giants and Cardinals continued this series this time after a day off on Friday at Busch Stadium on Saturday. The Giants got off to a great start scoring three runs in the top of the first innings off Cardinals starter Mile Mikolas. The Giants offensively wouldn’t make much noise for the rest of the game as the Cards would score runs two in the first, three in the fourth, two in each of the sixth and seventh innings resulting in a 9-4 loss.

#4 Jordan Hicks who started Saturday’s game is familiar with the Cardinals line up having played in St Louis previously just couldn’t figure them out going four innings, six hits, five runs, three walks and one strike out. Tough loss for Hicks who had some pretty good outings this season.

#5 If have to look back on this series with the Cardinals despite the tough loses the Giants took the most memorable thing was the Rickwood game where the discussion of the history of the Negro Leagues and the memories of Willie Mays was the main topic.

Stephen Ruderman is a podcast contributor and is a MLB beat writer for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

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