Starting The Stretch Run

Before I forget, a few housekeeping links that I was going to put up yesterday before unexpectedly being away from the computer.  The UCB roundtables are continuing.  Tuesday's can be found at The Redbird Blog and Wednesday's at Stan Musial's Stance.  Today's discussion is being led by Rockin' the Red and can be found over there tomorrow.  Friday is scheduled to be Mike on the Cards, then I'll wrap it up this weekend.

Also, as most sporting people are aware, the NCAA tournament starts today.  It's not baseball, but it's not bad.  If you want to take a gander at my picks, they were posted over at our fellow network site Cobra Brigade with commentary.  And if you are a Cardinal blogger and want to get one more bracket in before the deadline, there is a Yahoo league set up just for that.  The ID is 115742 and the password is bloggers.  There's only three of us in there so far, so at least I can crow that I finished third in one of my groups.

OK, so we had a good game out of the Cardinals while I was gone, but then better news today.  Apparently Adam Wainwright is going to sign a long-term deal today.  And if Derrick Goold is correct (and name me the last time he was wrong), it'll keep Wainwright here until 2013.  A four year deal, with an option for two more.

This is a little bit of a change from the front office.  As Goold notes in his article, they wouldn't go five years on A.J. Burnett a couple of offseasons ago.  Granted, Burnett had more injury history, but the point holds.  They did go five years on Carpenter, just to see him hit the DL.  So apparently Wainwright has done his job of impressing the bosses.

Being that the money is probably not franchise-crippling if he goes down, it's a great move.  It keeps him out of arbitration--where salaries really start climbing--and lets you have a blueprint for future seasons and the payroll that accompanies them.  I've said it before, but I'll mention it here now:  If Walt Jocketty continues to get killed over the Mulder deal, he needs to be equally praised for the Drew deal that brought Wainwright over to the Cards.

Other blogs and their takes:  VEB gives it the thumbs up.  It must be too recent of news, because most of the other Cardinal blogs haven't gotten their comments up, though CardsClubhouse does have a thread relating to it.

Yesterday's game, a 12-3 drubbing of the Orioles, had a lot of highlights.  I know we tend to take for granted how well Albert Pujols can hit, but remember last season he hit .262 with only one home run in the spring, then started off historically slow for him.  His final numbers were good, of course, but not Pujolsian.  If he can keep this hitting up through the beginning of the season, it'll help take a little pressure off some of the guys not used to being in that situation.  If he struggles, with this lineup, I'd expect a lot of struggling.

And, in a move that has TLR-bashers nodding their heads and saying, "About what I expected", Cesar Izturis, he of the, to quote Matthew Leach, "sub-.200 batting average and sub-.900 fielding percentage," will be the starting shortstop for your St. Louis Cardinals.  Hopefully, Tony knows what he's doing.  There's some logic in what he says about looking at the bigger picture, but the numbers aren't pretty right now.  That said, this could be a case where now that it is officially settled, Izturis relaxes and puts together some better games.  That's all Cardinal fans can hope for now.

Cardinals take on their stadium roommates again today, getting to be the home team against Florida.  When Bird Land posts the lineup, we'll take a look at it.




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