The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
DeJong powers Cardinals past Mets
NEW YORK — Paul DeJong made the right decision to give up the scalpel, trumpet and piano to concentrate on baseball.
A rising star on the Cardinals, the 24-year-old shortstop had the first multihomer game of his young career Sunday and helped St. Louis beat the New York Mets 5-1 to avoid an opening three-game sweep.
DeJong hit .285 with 25 home runs and 65 RBIs as a rookie last year, earning a $26 million, six-year contract.
He had 13 homers at Triple-A Memphis before his major-league debut on May 28 — when he homered off Colorado closer Greg Holland on his first bigleague swing.
“I know that I can consistently hit for power, whether it’s doubles or homers,” DeJong said.
DeJong sent a fastball from Steven Matz off the facing of the left-field second deck in the second inning and drove Jacob Rhame’s slider off an orange M&M advertisement just over the left-field wall in the eighth for his second solo homer.
“He’s dangerous,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. “I won’t put a ceiling on him.”
DeJong was 9 for 12 in a series against the Mets just before last year’s All-Star break and is 15 for 41 vs. New York with five doubles, six homers and eight RBIs overall. He is 3 for 3 with a pair of homers against Matz.
“I had two strikes on him and I left the ball right over the plate,” the Mets lefty said.
Luke Weaver (1-0), a rare starting pitcher with a single-digit uniform number (7), struggled through a 27-pitch first inning in his first outing and gave up Amed Rosario’s tying single in the second.
The 24-year-old righthander, who last summer became the first Cardinals rookie to win seven straight starts since Ted Wilks in 1944, wound up allowing five hits in five innings, four of them singles.
“A grind is like the perfect definition of what it was,” Weaver said.
Marcell Ozuna broke out of an 0-for-9 start with three hits, including an RBI double in the third and a run-scoring single in the fifth.
Yadier Molina hit a leadoff homer in the fourth for the Cardinals, outscored 15-6 in the first two games.
After solid starts by Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom, Matz (0-1) tried to put behind an injury-decimated sophomore season in which the lefty slumped to a 2-7 record.
He struggled with his control and was up to 51 pitches after two innings and 73 after three.
He lasted five innings, giving up three runs and four hits, as the Mets kept up their terrible trend of last year, when they were 16-36 in series finales.
“All three runs I gave up I had two strikes on the guys,” Matz said. “I was leaving the ball up a lot.”