The scoreboard above the bullpen that catalogs time, temperature, and the name of any reliever warming up announced late Thursday, during the home opener, that Mike Mayers had started getting ready, presumably for an appearance.
Not so.
He had asked to get a few throws in, some work of any kind. “I needed to get on that slope again,” he said.
A revelation of spring training, Mayers has been relegated so far during the season to a long relief role that is rarely used, even with an eight-man bullpen. In the Cardinals’ first eight games, the righthander has appeared once — for an inning on opening day — and not again, reserved at times for a multiple-inning stint that never arrives.