The left-hander made it through his first five frames unscathed before running into trouble in the sixth. In that inning, he put two men on before John Buck and Lucas Duda drove in a run each. Marlon Byrd followed with a two-run homer.

Gast, who threw 71 pitches, also struck out three and walked one in the victory.

His next start is scheduled for Sunday against the Brewers.

As he did coming up through the minors, Cingrani relied on a solid groundball rate and pinpoint control Tuesday against the Mets, though he just fell short of a quality start. Given what we know about his minor-league record, we should definitely expect Gast to be more like Jake Westbrook, the man he replaced in the rotation, than anything resembling a high-end Fantasy player.

The Cardinals have a long track record of getting the best out of their pitchers, but Gast still looks more like an NL-only Fantasy option, as is the case with most crafty, control specialists. 

My point was that the Cardinals' choice to start Tuesday's agame is an overlooked minor-league pitcher putting up sub-2.00 ERA in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, much like Cingrani did in the hitter-friendly California League last year. Oh, and he's a left-hander who hides the ball well. But that's the full extent of the comparison.

As commenter "Mrbeaglesworth" points out, Gast doesn't throw nearly as hard as Cingrani and likely won't have as much staying power. I'd pick him up in deeper leagues just in case he's this year's Mike Fiers, who baffled major-leaguers for a dozen starts last year before his inferior stuff caught up to him. But that's it.