Sunday, April 06

ST. LOUIS -- Sure, Cardinals’ reliever Chris Roycroft -- the embodiment of a feel-good, tear-jerking Disney movie come to life -- had already pitched in the big leagues, but Thursday’s outing came on Opening Day, and in St. Louis, Opening Day is inherently different.

To understand the emotional significance of Thursday’s Opening Day game to Roycroft, you must know the long and winding journey he’s had to get to this point. At tiny Aurora (Ill.) University, the 6-foot-8 Roycroft split his time pitching for the baseball team and playing small forward for the basketball team. Not drafted by a big league team, he had to work his way up through the Independent and Frontier Leagues. On an off night for the Joliet (Ill.) Slammers, Roycroft drove across the Mississippi River and into St. Louis, where he pressed his face onto the iron gates beyond the left-field fence and looked out at the pitching mound where he dreamed of being someday.

Roycroft, 27, finally reached the big leagues and made his MLB debut in 2024. Thursday, however, was different in so many ways, with it being Opening Day -- the equivalent of a city-wide holiday in St. Louis -- and the reminders for Roycroft were everywhere. Before the game, he looked eye to eye with a mammoth Clydesdale horse, he rode around the warning track and waved to fans from a vehicle and he nervously shook the hands of Hall of Famers Ozzie Smith and Tony La Russa and mentor Jason Isringhausen.

Not only did Roycroft get to savor all the Opening Day festivities before, during and after the Cardinals' 5-3 defeat of the Twins, but he also played a key role by retiring three Minnesota hitters in order in the seventh inning of a one-run game at the time. The whole day, he was stressed, almost like a too-good-to-be-true scenario and the actual realization of a dream.

“That’s one of those things that has always been on my bucket list to accomplish, and I can finally say that I’ve done that, and it meant a lot to me,” a smiling Roycroft said after the victory. “The whole day -- seeing the Clydesdales, seeing the red jackets [Cards Hall of Famers] and winning the game -- it was just an emotional anthem throughout the day for me. It just gave me chills, and there’s nothing that can ever replicate that feeling.”          

Roycroft was shuttled between St. Louis and Triple-A Memphis five times in 2024 while being used to fill in for injured or ineffective pitchers, but usually always ending up back in the Minor Leagues. This time, though, hit differently as he made the Opening Day roster with how consistently dominant he was during Spring Training. And when he got the call in a big spot in the opener, it cleared up any imposter syndrome-type feelings he might have been battling during a chaotic rookie season.

No longer, Roycroft said, was he simply the Minor League fill-in with the unlikely climb to the big leagues; this time around, he was a key piece in the most significant game he had ever played in.

 “You know, with my journey, I’ve been tested a bit, and I’m going to continue to be tested,” Roycroft said. “With [manager] Oli [Marmol] giving me the ball in the seventh in a leverage moment, that’s just a testament that he has confidence in me. I want the ball, and I want to be in those tight games.”

Roycroft said he knew Thursday would carry a special significance to him when he struggled to go to sleep on Wednesday night and woke up at 7 a.m. -- well before his alarm. Even though he was “amped” and filled with nervous energy, he spent time with his parents, who made the drive over to St. Louis from their home in suburban Chicago. Even Roycroft’s drive into Busch Stadium let him know the day would be special.

“Usually, those parking lots are mostly empty before games, so to see them already packed and fans tailgating, that told me it was different,” he said. “They had the grills going and I debated pulling off and joining them.”

A 98-minute rain delay didn’t do much to help Roycroft calm his nerves, but time out in the bullpen chatting with John King, JoJo Romero, Kyle Leahy and Ryan Fernandez did wonders for his jitters.

Just a few hundred feet away from the gate where he pressed his face and allowed himself to dream, Roycroft jogged onto the mound and experienced a feeling totally foreign to him in front of 47,395 fans.

“Once I got into the game, all the nerves and everything just kind of dissipated,” Roycroft said, still somewhat surprised hours later. “The most nervous was when I was in the bullpen, and I told myself, ‘Hey, relax! You’ve been through this, and you’ve been here.’ I knew that it was Opening Day, but I couldn’t treat it like that.”

Busch Stadium’s loudest cheers on Opening Day were reserved for Nolan Arenado, even though the star third baseman let it be known in the offseason that he would prefer to play for a championship-contending team instead of a Cardinals club that was intent on a roster reset. Arenado used the no-trade clause in his contract to kill a potential deal to the Astros in December, and he even admitted that “at one point, it probably got to like 70-30 that I wasn’t [going to return to the Cardinals].”

Cardinals fans cheered Arenado heartily when he circled the warning track as part of the vehicle caravan, giving him good vibes before the game began.

“It meant a lot to me,” Arenado said. “I took it all in today -- and I usually don’t, but today I did. The way [the fans] cheered for me, it meant a lot to me and got me motivated.”

Busch Stadium throbbed with noise late in the day when Arenado not only homered to left field -- a sign that his offseason work is already paying off and his hands are quick again -- but when he came out of the dugout for a curtain call and cupped his hand to his ear for more noise.

“I honestly wasn’t expecting fans to be that loud,” he admitted. “That hit me a little bit. I was pretty pumped up about it. When I touched my heart, I was basically saying thank you.”

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