Thursday, March 13

JUPITER, Fla. -- In a week when Cardinals pitcher Erick Fedde faced his Spring Training roommate, Nationals righty Michael Soroka, the team also had another statistical anomaly that seemed to defy the odds.

Playing simultaneous split-squad games in Jupiter and West Palm Beach on Tuesday, both Cards starting pitchers -- Michael McGreevy against the Nats and Andre Pallante versus the Mets -- played together at San Clemente (Calif.) High School. Not only that, but both pitched well -- McGreevy limited the Nats to one hit over three scoreless innings, while Pallante fanned two Mets over three scoreless innings.

What are the odds of that happening? Apparently, 100 percent.

“That was pretty cool, almost like something you would see in the movies,” cracked McGreevy, one of the Cardinals’ best spring performers. “I would have never guessed that would happen. Obviously, the goal for both of us was to get to the big leagues. But, if you had told me we’d be on the same team and the same rotation, I’d have thought you were lying.

“It never works out like this, but it’s really cool. And then to have us both starting on a day with split-squad games, that was so cool.”

While Pallante and McGreevy have the high school connection, a pitching kinship and a friendship that dates to 2014 when the former was a high school senior and the latter a high school sophomore, they couldn’t be more different as athletes or personalities.

The 6-foot Pallante is shy and unassuming, and was a fourth-round Draft pick who had to claw his way to the big leagues as a middle reliever. Meanwhile, the 6-foot-4 McGreevy oozes confidence and personality, and was a first-round pick by the Cards in 2021, even though he spent most of his formative years in baseball playing shortstop.

“I wasn’t anything special in high school, but Michael was a shortstop and a pretty good athlete,” recalled Pallante, who at 26 is two years older than McGreevy. “In my senior year, he was a sophomore, and he pitched for us some. He only threw like 85 or 86 [mph] and that was still 5 mph harder than I was throwing back then.

“I’m not the athletic one, for sure, because Michael is super athletic. He could swing the bat pretty well and play good defense back then, and he can hit a golf ball pretty well, too.”

Not only do Pallante and McGreevy lean on one another for support on the Cardinals pitching staff, they occasionally hang out away from the baseball field. McGreevy, who usually shoots in the high 70s or low 80s on the golf course, was scheduled to play a round with his former high school buddy, but they had to cancel when Pallante experienced hip pain. McGreevy playfully breathed a sigh of relief when the round was canceled, considering that Pallante is a beginner and usually shoots higher than 100.

“I’m pretty much worse than him in every aspect,” deadpanned Pallante, “outside of the fact that I can throw a little bit harder than him now.”

After high school, McGreevy and Pallante both played baseball in college and their paths crossed again during a particularly heated 2019 series between McGreevy’s UC-Santa Barbara and Pallante’s UC-Irvine. Pallante, who features a knuckle-curve and a sinker that usually gives left-handed hitters fits, started the series opener and McGreevy was part of a crew in the dugout that was trying to pick up the pitches and relay that information to hitters. That tactic brought out a side of the usually mild-mannered Pallante that McGreevy admittedly had never seen.

“We thought we had picked up Andre’s pitches ... and with the way his wrist was moving, and we’d call out the pitches,” McGreevy recalled. “But even with us calling out the pitches, he still punched out the side. Then, he looked in our dugout and screamed, ‘Let’s gooooooo!’ I had never seen him get that angry or animated about anything.”

Joked Pallante: “When you try to cheat your way to win a game, that’s what happens. So, I said some things toward their dugout.”

Years later, when McGreevy was drafted by the Cardinals in 2021, one of the first text messages he received came from his high school teammate, his rival in college and a current Cardinal. In their dream scenario, both will be on the Cardinals’ starting staff to open the 2025 season.

“We don’t talk much about [hailing from the same high school], but it’s just so cool to still be around a guy I’ve known since I was 15 and now, we’re playing in the big leagues together,” McGreevy said.

The Cardinals’ social media team recently caught some of the club’s players off guard by having them flip over snazzy new Topps baseball cards. The catch, however, was that the pictures featured some of the players’ most unflattering pictures from years earlier.

Cards social media manager Daniel Venn worked with mothers, wives and girlfriends to uncover some of the funniest pictures possible to draw laughter out of the players. Topps made 50 cards of the featured Cardinals, and they plan to sprinkle some in their chase packs for fans, Venn said. Also, some of the Cards’ cards will be autographed to make them even more exclusive.

Catcher Pedro Pagés had what one teammate called “duck lips” and a cardigan tied around his neck while posing in a teenage photo. Victor Scott II and Thomas Saggese have cards from their early baseball days when they were playing for, fittingly enough, the Cardinals.

Miles Mikolas took great pride in his “Cowboy Card,” one that featured him in head-to-toe denim. Reliever Ryan Fernandez flashed some Justin Bieber-like hair that nearly covered his eyes. He was tempted, he said, to draw a dark, bushy mustache onto the card like the one he sports now.

Masyn Winn, who was three or four years old at the time of his photo, was “iced out” in necklaces and bracelets that his older brother dressed him in. The favorite card among players and coaches was of a much younger Alec Burleson, sans his modern-day beard and long, curly hair.

“[Bench coach Daniel] Descalso said if this guy can make it to the big leagues, anybody can make it,” joked manager Oliver Marmol, who has kept the Burleson card on his desk throughout Spring Training.

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