Cardinal Comings and Goings

The Cardinals had a pitcher arrive in camp, a pitcher leave for the minors and a pitcher leave for another team yesterday.  None of them were able to overshadow the pitcher that pitched, however.

Chris Carpenter had another stellar outing on the mound, going five innings and leading St. Louis to a 6-3 win over the Nationals on Monday.  While his spring scoreless streak was snapped at 16 2/3, he still hasn't given up an earned run this spring.  He also stepped up his strikeout game (something that was a topic of Twitter discussion yesterday) by fanning six in his five innings.  This is the real deal, I believe.  This spring has been better than any of us expected out of him and it really raises the excitement level for the coming season.

Offensively, Brendan Ryan made a case to be the occasional leadoff hitter, going 2-5 and scoring a run.  Yesterday, I mistakenly said that Joe Thurston was about the only middle infield backup option left, but obviously Ryan is there as well. 

Chris Duncan had a 2-4 day.  After numerous big games, we've not heard from him in a while so it's good to know he's still hitting over .300 for the spring.  He even stole a base, which you won't see every day.  Rick Ankiel and Yadier Molina also had two hits.

Looking at the boxscore, though, I found one hitter that stood out even though he didn't get a base hit.  Colby Rasmus came in later in the game and officially stood at 0-1.  However, he also drew a walk and stole his third base of the season.  His all around game is what is going to get him on this roster, I believe.

Talking about the roster leads us into the discussion of the pitcher movement yesterday.  First off, Dennys Reyes made his official entrance into Cardinal camp.  You have to like a guy who says on the pronunciation of his first name, "It's like the restaurant."  Of course, a jovial attitude from a big guy goes far when you are getting batters out.  Ask Ray King how long it lasts if you aren't.  Still, Reyes is off on the right foot and should get some action Wednesday or Thursday.

After pitching three scoreless innings in yesterday's game, PJ Walters was sent down to the minor league camp.  That follows Blake Hawksworth having a good outing before going down as well.  At least the pitchers make the decisions harder right before they go!  If I'm right, that means the roster stands at 32 with just less than two weeks in the spring.  You have to figure that Sunday will be one of the last cutdown days.

The Cardinals also completed the Khalil Greene trade yesterday, sending relief prospect Luke Gregerson to the Padres.  You can find the analysis over at Future Redbirds, but to me, it seems like a fairly decent cost for what could be a significant upgrade at the shortstop position.  If Greene has a good year, you'd expect there's a chance the Cardinals could sign him to an extension before the season is over, increasing their return in the deal.

On the injury front, there is good news and, if not bad news, at least news you really didn't want to hear.  The latter is that Troy Glaus has hit a wall in his rehab.  For a while there it looked like he might get into a few late spring training games, but apparently that's not going to happen now.  Which, with Cardinals and injuries, has to raise concerns even if Glaus is saying they didn't go backward in his recovery.  Hopefully he'll be back on the mend pretty soon.

Better news is that Chris Perez sounds like he's about ready to go. I imagine he's really chomping at the bit due to the fact that he's pretty much lost the closer job to Jason Motte at the moment and may be battling for the last slot on the roster.  With the fact that he has options and that he hasn't pitched, Memphis is looking like a more likely spot for him, at least temporarily, but if he's able to get six more appearances in and does well, he could force Tony La Russa's hand somewhat.

Matthew Leach has his latest roster projection up.   He has Perez going down, Joe Mather making the team as an outfielder and David Freese going north as the third baseman.  I do like the fact that he says he has a hard time seeing Rasmus not on the roster.  I'm really anxious to see what Colby can do on a regular basis.

Pip at Fungoes has an article up exploring if the Cardinals should go to a four-man rotation.  The positives of that are very compelling, but I don't know if that'd be more likely to aggrevate injuries, in Carpenter especially.  If so, you could undo all that good work by having to force in a below-replacement level pitcher.

The last approval rating:  Bill DeWitt scored a 80.2%.  I gave him an 85, because he's had a very good run and I agree with most of what he's done.  There have been a few questionable calls and I'm not sure they do a great job with the press, but on the whole, he's been a good owner in my opinion.

Today is a milestone.  It's the 500th entry I've written for C70 At The Bat.  (507 overall, with six from Mike of Stan Musial's Stance last year and one with the UCB blog swap earlier this year.)  It's been fun and I hope you've enjoyed.

Remember that the United Cardinal Blogger Radio Hour is a half-hour earlier tomorrow and that Derrick Goold will be joining us.  Hope you can join us!


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