Hochman: Cardinals' Pages takes us behind the plate (and scenes) for Sonny Gray’s perfect-game bid (2024)

We were all witnessing greatness from different vantage points — be it the box seats or the press box or, unfortunately for the San Francisco Giants, the batter’s box. But on Sunday at Busch Stadium, Pedro Pages watched one of the best starts of the year from the best seat in the house ... with the caveat that he had to sit in a crouch position the whole time.

“Every pitch he was throwing was thrown with conviction,” catcher Pages said of Cardinals starter Sonny Gray, who has six pitches in his arsenal. “It was just impressive to watch and just be there, catching with him.”

Sonny’s Sunday was stunning. In the seventh inning, he still had a perfect game. But with two outs, he allowed a homer to Patrick Bailey. Still, Gray finished the day with seven innings pitched, allowing one hit and one run with eight strikeouts, no walks and his best win yet as a St. Louis Cardinal.

“His stuff,” Pages said, “was electric.”

Pages noticed Gray’s seriousness as early as Sunday’s pregame meeting with pitching coach Dusty Blake. Now, to be fair, Gray is perpetually intense — he probably talks trash to his phone screen during Wordle. He’s an alpha male. So the pregame meeting wasn’t necessarily even a meeting.

“He pretty much takes over,” Pages said. “And me and Dusty just sit back and listen and just see what he wants to do with each hitter. And then if we have to pitch in our ideas, we throw it in there. But at the end of the day, it’s his plan — and we just go out there and we execute.”

The rookie Pages, interestingly, was the first catcher Gray met as a Cardinal. Gray signed in the offseason, and before official spring training began, their lockers were near each other in Florida. Pages caught Gray’s bullpen sessions, Gray said. They developed a feel for one another — though at the time, it could’ve been deemed irrelevant. The Cardinals, of course, had catchers Willson Contreras and Ivan Herrera. Pages was a minor leaguer. But injuries brought Pages to St. Louis and back into the life of St. Louis’ ace.

For Sunday’s first pitch of the first inning, Pages called a four-seam fastball — fired at 91.7 mph. Brett Wisely fouled it off.

What unfurled was a seven-pitch at-bat.

Man, first batter of the game and Gray already was in a full count?

But on the seventh pitch, Sonny hummed a 92.5 mph four-seamer inside to the lefty. The kid didn’t swing. Oh, and Pages framed it perfectly — the pitch was riiiiiight on the edge of the strike zone and, sure enough, was called strike three.

“Once he did that, I was like — his stuff is on today,” Pages said of Gray, who struck out the No. 2 hitter, too. “He was just being able to command every pitch and any count. And that cutter was really on today. Curveball when he needed to flip it in there. It was just a fun day all around — any pitch, any time.”

As for those pitches, Pages said he’s the one calling them — though, as one might suspect, “(Gray) has, too, in certain situations.”

But this relationship just worked wonderfully on Sunday. Pages shared he was especially impressed by Gray’s ability to utilize his cutter, followed by his tantalizing sweeper. Five of Gray’s eight K’s came courtesy of the sweeper.

And so, it was the fifth inning when the 0’s made Pages go ‘Oh!’

That’s when the catcher realized the pitcher was throwing a perfect game.

“I was like, ‘Oh, we’re doing good!’” Pages said. “I was like, ‘I might not say anything, but we’re just going to keep rolling. Keep calling the pitches.’”

As one reporter pointed out postgame to Pages, Gray’s back was to the looming outfield scoreboard, but Pages had to look at the score line the whole time.

“Oh yeah, you’ve got to stare at those 0 0 0 up there! ...” Pages said. “(Nerves), for sure you think about it. It’s always in the back of your mind.”

As Gray started the top of the sixth, he’d thrown just 54 pitches — and only 15 balls. He quickly logged two outs. But Austin Slater, the No. 9 hitter, worked the count to 3-1. Pages later would call this his favorite at-bat of the game.

Why?

“We just got back into the zone,” he said. “Trusting it and throwing the heater right by him — and another one after that.”

After navigating the afternoon with breaking pitches, Pages trusted Gray with the four-seam fastball in the biggest at-bat. They got the strikeout. Perfecto through six.

And as Gray walked into the quiet dugout, and Slater to his, the stadium DJ played “Another One Bites the Dust.”

Alas, with two outs in the seventh inning — and perhaps baseball’s 25th perfect game percolating — Gray allowed his first base runner ... Patrick Bailey, who promptly ran around the bases in a home-run trot.

Cards still led 4-1.

For good measure, Gray struck out the next fellow — former World Series MVP Jorge Soler — on a Frisbee-like sweeper that Pages actually had to block to prevent the need for a throw, and the Cardinals went on to win 5-3.

In the dugout after the seventh-inning stretch, Pages finally did something he hadn’t done for innings — talk to Sonny Gray, whose day was done.

“I walked up to him,” Pages shared, “and said, ‘Hey, great job.’ He just told me, ‘Hey, great job — but this thing is not done. Keep working. Let’s go. Finish it.’ And then after the game we finally hugged it out and enjoyed it. But he’s intense — and I love that about him.”