Flaherty's name in pencil as Cards home opener starter

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JUPITER, Fla. (KMOX) - As the St. Louis Cardinals starting rotation continues to fall into place, we learned Jack Flaherty is likely going to be the first pitcher to get the ball at Busch Stadium in 2019.

It's not written in pen and probably won't be until the morning of the April 4 game because that's the way manager Mike Shildt prefers it.

But we do know the 23-year-old is going to start the second game of the year for St. Louis, behind the Opening Day starter Miles Mikolas. Then if you go through the schedule and plug in a Cardinals possible five-man rotation, you find Flaherty getting his second start of the year on the home opener.

Related: Flaherty wanted his chance to hit against National's Max Scherzer

His reaction:

"Cool," Flaherty says. "To put it as straight forward as I can, it would be friggin' sweet. But yeah, I don't think anything is written is pen right now." 

Jack Flaherty, on the thought of starting the home opener at Busch Stadium: “To put it as straightforward as I can... it would be friggin’ sweet.” #stlcards --

— Tom Ackerman (@Ackerman1120) March 18, 2019

Flaherty is coming off a near Rookie of the Year winning season in 2018. This spring he has 19 strikeouts, allowed 10 hits and four runs in 13 innings in Grapefruit League play. Then he had a dominating performance on the Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium backfields, Monday against a Miami Marlins minor league roster.

He struck out nine during six scoreless innings. He'll likely have one more game-scenario performance left this spring, before preparing to start the second game of the season in Milwaukee.

Miles Mikolas and Jack Flaherty pitched on the back fields today, each going 6 innings.Mikolas: 5 runs on 12 hits, no walks, 5 K's. He threw 97 pitches. Felt good, didn't have fastball command.Flaherty: 3 hits, 2 walks, struck out 9. Threw 84 pitches. He liked it.#stlcards

— Tom Ackerman (@Ackerman1120) March 18, 2019

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