His first game, on Friday night, helped Fox Sports Midwest generate its best Cardinals rating of the season to date. Nielsen, which tracks viewership, said that 10.6 of homes in the market with a TV turned in then. That followed a Pujols-laden pregame show, which also drew the biggest audience other than for the hoopla surrounding the home opener.
ESPN had the series finale as its nationally televised "Sunday Night Baseball" production. It drew a 9.3 rating locally, which is the best figure for any of the Cardinals' four "SNB" games this season. But that ranks just 35th among the Redbirds' appearances on that program over the last decade.