Birds of a feather? New Oriole Flaherty faces DeJong as a Blue Jay

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV) - Thursday’s matinee between the Orioles and Blue Jays in Toronto featured a scene that would have seemed pretty confusing to Cardinals fans before the events immediately preceding Tuesday’s MLB trade deadline.

With St. Louis sitting well below a .500 record and outside shouting distance of the division leaders, the Cardinals unloaded a number of expiring contracts in exchange for prospects and controllable players over the past week. Those trades included Paul DeJong heading to Toronto and Jack Flaherty becoming an Oriole.

The two sides happen to be facing off this week, so when Flaherty debuted for his new club, DeJong was in the lineup on the other side.

The first matchup between the former Redbirds came in the bottom of the second inning. DeJong worked a deep count before Flaherty got him swinging through a particularly nasty knuckle curve, off the plate low and away.

That's not a very nice thing to do to a guy who was your teammate three days ago 😳 https://t.co/ZKfR6BI9Sr
— Brenden Schaeffer🎳 (@bschaeffer12) August 3, 2023

Beyond the sharpness of his breaking pitches, Flaherty was clearly amped up for his first outing with a new team in the velocity department. In the early going of the start, he regularly threw fastballs in the range of 95 to 97 mph.

The art of velocity https://t.co/RBaMfUyODu
— Brenden Schaeffer🎳 (@bschaeffer12) August 3, 2023

Former Cardinals Jordan Hicks and Genesis Cabrera are in Toronto with DeJong as members of the Blue Jays after the whirlwind deadline. The Cardinals have already played their series against Toronto this season--as well as against the Texas Rangers, where Jordan Montgomery and Chris Stratton landed. The Cardinals will play the Orioles in Baltimore September 11-13.