“They just go at you with a bunch of cold water to the point where I was hyperventilating,” Shildt said.
Everyone involved now can take a deep breath at the end of a whirlwind 18 hours in which Shildt went from bench coach to interim manager after Mike Matheny was fired on Saturday night. Shildt came out with a 1-0 record as the Cardinals beat the Reds 6-4 on Sunday afternoon at Busch Stadium.
Matt Carpenter and Dexter Fowler homered (“I think at the end of the day it’s more of a coincidence,” Fowler said of the homer in his first post-Matheny at-bat) and Miles Mikolas staggered through four innings but John Gant followed him with four excellent innings and the Cardinals snapped a three-game losing streak (and six-game losing streak at home).