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Recently in Atlanta Braves CategoryRedbirds Roll Through WeekendPosted on May 3, 2010 at 8:12 AM
It was a very busy weekend for me, but the Cardinals did a lot of working as well. By now you know all about the games, but let's take a quick look at Thursday through Sunday to get our Heroes and our Goats. (If you want a more in-depth look, my Week that Was column will be up at Baseball Digest soon.) Thursday (Cardinals 10, Braves 4) Hero: David Freese. Six RBI as a rookie had never been done before. A wonderful game all the way around for the third baseman. Goat: Skip Schumaker. 0-5 in the leadoff slot on a day when the team scores 10 is not exactly a resume enhancer. Notes: Colby Rasmus had a solid game as well, with two hits and two walks and four runs scored...nice to see Tyler Greene go yard as well....Adam Wainwright might not have had his best stuff, but I still wonder if the results had been different if he had been in a closer game. Not that he was pitching to the score, but that has to allow you to experiment a little bit. Friday (Reds 3, Cardinals 2) Hero: Matt Holliday. Two hits and drove in the two Cardinal runs. Goat: Colby Rasmus. Not completely for the 0-4, but more for the strikeout in the eighth with runners on second and third and nobody out. Almost anything would have tied the game up, but a strikeout allowed for a walk of Yadier Molina to set up the double play possibility, which Mr. Freese then hit into. Notes: Freese probably should have gotten the goat, what with his double play and getting picked off of second the inning before....Brad Penny was not as dominant as he has been, but you wonder how much the weather affected that, especially since it was raining during the inning the Reds took the lead. Saturday (Cardinals 6, Reds 3) Hero: Skip Schumaker. Scored the first tie-breaking run, then drove in the second tie-breaking run. Good day for the Schu-man. Goat: Dennys Reyes. Blake Hawksworth may have put them on, but Reyes was unable to do anything with the hitters he faced, blowing Kyle Lohse's chance at his first win. Notes: Lohse looked like he did figure something out in his Atlanta start, allowing just one run over seven innings....I was pretty surprised when the Reds still pitched to Pujols in the seventh after Schumaker "stole" second, but I'm glad that they did....Freese hit another home run, just part of his big weekend. Sunday (Cardinals 6, Reds 0) Hero: Chris Carpenter. Two hits in seven innings and the fastball is back. You know the rest of the NL just groaned a little bit. Goat: Yadier Molina. 0-4 with a passed ball. Notes: Pujols had a big three-run double to break the game open...another home run by Freese, who could be NL Player of the Week...wonder if Rasmus is slumping a bit, another two strikeout, zero hit day for him. After that weekend, the Cards remain on top of the NL Central, a big 4 1/2 games ahead of the Cubs, who had to have a big weekend just to get to .500. You hate to say anything, but this has the possibility of being one of the least dramatic pennant races in a long while. Just for reference's sake, the 2004 team (that won 105 games and the division by 13) was at .500 and 2.5 games back at this point, while the 2005 team (100 wins, won by 11) was 17-8 and led the division by 5. So maybe Fox Sports Midwest should be taking a look at the fifth anniversary of the 2005 team as well as the 1982 and 2000 teams! This upcoming series, though, will provide the truest test so far of the quality of this club. Before the season started, it was my opinion (as well as many others) that the two best teams on paper were St. Louis and Philadelphia. Not much has changed that assessment so far, though the Mets have made the NL East a much more interesting race than expected. Still, it's going to be great to get the measure of both sides during the four game set that starts tonight. Jaime Garcia goes for the Cardinals against Joe Blanton for the Phillies. Here's Garcia's limited exposure to the Philadelphia squad:
When I was planning this entry, I thought that Cole Hamels was scheduled for the opener. Instead, the Phillies are going to go with Joe Blanton and I can't get to B-R to pull up another table. Suffice it to say that, as bad as the Hamels numbers were, Blanton has to be an improvement, especially since he's not pitched yet this season. Besides, I think it works much better for St. Louis to match up Wainwright with Hamels instead of Garcia. Mike Lynch, who is the head guy at Seamheads, where I also contribute, wanted to pass along this tragic story. Stories like this make me hug my son and daughter just a little tighter, knowing just how fragile life really is. If you feel moved to contribute, there's a spot over at Seamheads to do just that.
YNOT is up over at CardsClubhouse, if you are one that likes to play that. Looking forward to a great week of baseball! Filed Under: Atlanta Braves
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Wishes GrantedPosted on April 29, 2010 at 8:00 AM
In yesterday's entry, I said this:"I'd like to see them get a lead and then gradually increase it" As I've said before, sometimes it's like they read this blog. Last night, the Cardinals go out and score in the first, add on in the third, and then just kept going. With any Cardinal starter right now (even Kyle Lohse, if he's gotten through a couple of good innings), you never get too worried if there's a lead, because the pitching has just been so good. There are a lot of good candidates for Hero from last night's ball game, but I'm a sucker for pitching, especially when there's no obvious offensive selection. It was great to see Skip Schumaker get a couple of hits (bet he won't be changing out of the high socks for a while), Colby Rasmus to drive in one with his first hit off a lefthander, David Freese celebrating his birthday right with two hits and two RBI, and if Albert Pujols hits a ball about a foot another way, he drives in three or four instead of just one. All those were solid candidates, but you have to give the tip of the hat to Jaime Garcia. It'll be interesting to see how he does when he starts seeing teams a second or third time, but right now he's just amazing to watch. Who's have thought he'd get through his first month in a rotation with an ERA just slightly over one? (And, more surprisingly, not even lead his own team in ERA!) Garcia should be named rookie of the month this month by MLB and has put a strong foot forward in the rookie of the year race. Jason Heyward may get more press, but Garcia has been better overall. On the flip side, we have Matt Holliday. Another hitless night, though he did walk and score a run. If we counted pre-game, though, we'd have to find someone else, because smashing the C in Big Mac land is pretty darn cool, especially when you could see the ball still sitting up there. Holliday thinks he's got an idea why he's been struggling, so we'll see if it works out. Before we get to today's matchups, I want to talk a little about the new app that the Post-Dispatch has out for the iPhone and other mediums. Full disclosure: I was provided a free copy of it, though no reviewing strings were attached to that. I downloaded it last night and played around a little with it. It's a pretty sharp thing. It's got Bird Land on there, which is a must of course, and it's got the stories from the P-D. It also comes with pictures and news of all the players, and it has an easy-to-navigate menu so that you can find all the stories related to Pujols or Holliday or whomever. It even allows you to read Derrick Goold's Twitter posts, as well as other P-D members. All in all, I think it's worth the $3 that they are charging for it. If you are into these kind of things, it's worth checking out. Cards go for the sweep in the afternoon tilt today. A note that Fox Sports Midwest will be doing a live chat during the game, so check them out over there while the actions going on. Adam Wainwright goes for the Cardinals, so you feel good about the chances of a sweep. Here's what the Wagonmaker has done against the team that drafted him.
The Braves send out Jair Jurrjens to try to stop the bleeding. Numbers against the Redbirds:
No blog post tomorrow, as it's my church's annual BBQ and I'll be there from about 3:30-7. That's AM to PM. Long day, but a lot of fun. Hopefully there's a lot of good Cardinal baseball to write about when next we speak!
Another Rally By The RedbirdsPosted on April 28, 2010 at 7:49 AM
You know, it's kinda nice to see these comebacks. Granted, I'd like to see them get a lead and then gradually increase it, but knowing that a team isn't out of it is helpful.You have to give the Hero tag to Yadier Molina this time. For the second straight night, he gave the Cards the lead with a solid hit. For the last three years or so, Yadi's been a guy that I want up there when the team needs a hit, second only to Albert Pujols in that regard. On the flip side, Blake Hawksworth really had a terrible game, didn't he? He came into the game with a three run lead and left one out later with it down to one and the winning run on base. The runs weren't earned, but that's because he made the error, throwing the ball away on a play at the plate. Not exactly a night that he'll want to remember for a while. I think one of the more disconcerting things to come out of last night's game, though, was that Chris Carpenter didn't have a feel for his fastball. Normally, that's not a huge deal, but when you factor in that the game before he didn't have it either, you start to wonder exactly why not. Carp wasn't completely Carp-like last night, though he still was very effective and gave the team a chance to win, so I think that's something to keep an eye on. To be his dominant self, he's going to have to have more confidence in the heater. One person who never lacks for a heater is Jason Motte, who actually got the save last night, with Ryan Franklin having worked the last two days. Seemed to me watching that game that Motte got wild when he was throwing 96, 97, but he'd tone it down to about 88 and get the ball over the plate. He also made an acrobatic play to get Erik Henske at first after a double-play ball had bounced off his glove. (You could also tell that he wasn't exactly happy with botching the DP....) It was a little bit of a high-wire act, but it still was good to see Motte get a save in such a close game. Hopefully it'll be good for the confidence. Also, it was nice to see my friends at Pitchers Hit Eighth be relevant again. It will be interesting to see, since the fact that Brendan Ryan was hitting ninth played into the game-winning rally, if Tony La Russa will go with the pitcher in the eighth spot again tonight and for how long. I'd like to see it continue for a while, but you never know with TLR. In news that sent some worry around Cardinal Nation, Aaron Miles is back. Now, I honestly don't think he'll ever see St. Louis this year. Felipe Lopez should be back soon and Tyler Greene is fine as a backup. I would also hope that, even if he did make it, TLR wouldn't feel the need to play him much given Ryan and Skip Schumaker. That said, well, you just never know. Hopefully that'll be the case, because Miles was all right in St. Louis, but we got his career years and they weren't super at that level. Cards have at least split the series, which is good, and they have Jaime Garcia and Adam Wainwright going to get another series win. The Cardinals are already the best team in baseball, record-wise, and there's no reason to think this can't keep rolling along. Garcia goes tonight against Kenshin Kawakami. The only Brave that has faced Garcia is Nate McLouth, who is 0-1 against him. Kawakami is just as much of a cipher, as the only person that has faced him (Felipe Lopez, 1-3) is on the disabled list. Cards have had trouble in the past with pitchers they've not seen. You'd like to think that Kawakami's 4.76 ERA would indicate St. Louis would be able to take him, but you don't have to have been a fan very long to know that high ERA guys oftentimes are able to shut the Cardinals down. UCB Radio Hour is on tonight! It's one I'm pretty excited about, because not only is Nick, one of our great hosts from Pitchers Hit Eighth, on the schedule tonight but also Tom from CardinalsGM. Tom was one of the original voices of the UCB Radio Hour back in its infancy and it's great to get him back in the saddle again. 9:30 Central over at Blog Talk Radio, so give them a listen or call in at 646-929-1758!
Cardinal ComebackPosted on April 27, 2010 at 7:47 AM
First off, I want to say thank you to everyone who has expressed kind words over the Cardinal Blogosphere Guide. I hope that it results in increased traffic for the blogs listed and that you can find another source of can't-miss Cardinal writing.Perhaps it was just me, but it seems like if this was last year's team, a 3-0 deficit against Tim Hudson would have been game over. I was listening to that portion on the radio and felt like it was over. Atlanta seemed to be continually chipping away at Kyle Lohse and the Cardinals were again not getting any hits with men in scoring position. However, the last half of this game was very different than the first half. I'm not quite willing to give Lohse the Hero of the game tag, but he did stiffen and figure out how to keep Atlanta from scoring any more runs. It sounded like he was getting the ball down more in the last couple of innings, which always is a good thing. I don't think all the runs he allowed were his fault, either. It seemed to me, watching the third inning, that he made some awfully good pitches, especially to Chipper Jones who eventually walked. I thought he should have had Jones out a long time before that, but he couldn't get the calls. It seemed like he just had to lay it in there to get a strike, something Troy Glaus took advantage of in driving in the second run. I'm going to give Colby Rasmus the Hero tag again. Not only did he hit a big home run to pull the Cards within one, his continued development (and the fact that Albert Pujols was on second with first open) led to a walk in the eighth, allowing Yadier Molina to drive in the winning run (and would have had an insurance run if that ball hadn't hopped the wall). Sure, that set up the double play with Molina batting, but I'm wondering if things might not have been a bit different if it was the early-season 2009 Rasmus batting. Then again, maybe not. Bobby Cox did walk Skip Schumaker to get to Ryan Ludwick, something that I've never seen and likely won't see again anytime soon. Talking about heroes, can we give a little credit to this bullpen? I've been one in the last couple of weeks that has been on their case, but since Mitchell Boggs grooved a pitch to Mark Reynolds in Arizona, here's their combined line: 13 IP, 10 H, 11 K, 7 BB, 1.38 ERA The walk total is a little high, but it's skewed by Kyle McClellan's three in the first game of the examined period. They've really come in and shut the door in the last week and hopefully that will continue. Finally, major kudos to Bryan Anderson. In his last major league at-bat for a while, as Jason LaRue will be activated today, he had a nice piece of hitting, going the other way to drive in the tying run. Hopefully he'll do well in Memphis, though the odds of us seeing him before September (barring injury) are very slim. There was some talk on the post-game show last night about the team carrying three catchers and letting him be more of a left-handed bat, but I think if they wanted to do that, they'd have let him play more in the last couple of weeks, as they have Nick Stavinoha as an emergency backup. Even though David Freese went 0-4, there's no way he can be the Goat. He had a number of defensive gems last night, bringing back memories of Scott Rolen. To think that people were ragging on his defense at the beginning of the season! Freese is starting to look like one of the biggest steals in Cardinal history. So if we don't give it to him, we look to the other 0-4 in the box score, Brendan Ryan. It's been a tough month for Brendan and thankfully it's not really affected his glove, but he's going to have to hit over .200 soon, isn't he? The Cards made some moves yesterday, sending down Allen Craig, putting Felipe Lopez on the disabled list, and calling up Tyler Greene and Jon Jay. I put a quick look at the newcomers together for Baseball Digest yesterday, and as I did so I really got excited for what Jay especially may bring to this ball club. He's got a good high-average bat, so he may be more likely to help that "string hits together" idea. He's got speed, so he can go first to third or steal a base. I expect he'll probably get a start in this Atlanta series, maybe Thursday, and it'll be interesting to see what he does with the opportunity. The move that may affect the Cardinals the most from yesterday, though, they didn't make. Twitter blew up yesterday with the announcement of Ryan Howard's five year extension. You can find Ben's ruminations on that over at BD, but the consensus is 1) that's way more that Howard is worth and 2) it's going to make it that much harder for St. Louis to sign Pujols. I tend to agree, at least on the former. I mean, Howard has always struck me as a guy that isn't necessarily going to age well. He hits long balls and that's about the extent of it. He still can't hit left-handed pitching, so his average is never going to be really high. He's not known as any great shakes at first. He's a good player, don't get me wrong, but the second-highest annual salary in baseball? That doesn't seem right. Will this affect Pujols's contract? That remains to be seen. On the one hand, you'd think it'd have to, because it's the easiest comparison in the world. Howard plays the same position and does everything worse than Pujols, so you know AP would be looking for more than $25 million per now. On the other hand, does it really? I mean, no one expected to get AP for $25 per year, did they? Not if he's looking to be the highest player in the game. He already had the ARod contract and the Mark Teixeira contracts to use as a comparison. Does this really add that much more fuel to the fire? Look, we already know that Pujols, if he wanted to hold out for every cent, is going to be the richest player ever, no matter who pays him. I don't know that being able to point to one more crazy contract will add much incentive to either side. I still think, and I've held to this all along, that Pujols's contract is going to have some creative stuff in it. Honestly, you hear this tossed around by a lot of media types for a lot of contracts, but I would not be surprised if a small fraction of team ownership, say 3% or so, wouldn't be part of it. I'm not sure if it's legal within the rules of the game, so it might be that he gets an option to purchase that percentage at a bargain rate when he retires, but I think ownership might well be a part of his next deal. Cards get back to the field tonight and send out Chris Carpenter against Derek Lowe. You always like your chances when Carpenter is on the bump. Here is what he's done against the Braves:
Derek Lowe has looked a little shaky so far this season. Still, he's a ground ball specialist who can get it going at any time. Here's him against the Cardinals:
Pitchin' On The Dock Of The BayPosted on April 26, 2010 at 7:49 AM
You knew, just looking at the matchups, two things about this weekend's series. One, it was going to be darn tough for the Cardinals to keep their streak of not losing a series alive. The second was that if anyone scored, it was going to be a fairly impressive accomplishment.Sometimes when you think you have a handle on a series, it turns around and surprises you. This time, not so much. The Giants scored all of six runs this weekend--and won two out of three games. The Cardinals scored three runs, which normally would provoke questions about the offense (and to some degree still does), but really wasn't unexpected. So the two teams combined to score fewer runs in the entire series than the Astros scored by themselves on Sunday. It was that kind of weekend. Jaime Garcia continues to draw the toughest the other team has to offer. It's one of the downsides to that early season flip of him and Chris Carpenter due to the unwillingness to have Garcia pitch in the first ESPN Sunday Night game. I say downside, but it's not affected Garcia anywhere but in the win column. He beat Yovani Gallardo and arguably outpitched Johan Santana in the beginnings of that 20-inning game. While he didn't outpitch Tim Lincecum--that's a tough thing to do--he did pitch a solid game without his best stuff. He walked three and gave up seven hits, yet if the defense had been a little better behind him, he might have gotten out of there with only two runs allowed. He becomes more and more impressive every time out and it's be interesting to see what he does on Wednesday versus his first non-ace, Braves pitcher Kenshin Kawakami. More kudos go his way for getting his first major league hit off of such a dominating starter. The Hero of that game, though, was probably Yadier Molina, for providing the little offense St. Louis could muster against Big Time Timmy Jim. Two of the eight hits and the only RBI. Lincecum gave the Cards a few chances, but Molina was the only one to capitalize on any of them. It's a little tough to separate out a Goat, but we'll give it to David Freese for an 0-4 with a strikeout. I wanted to lean toward Brendan Ryan, due to his error that helped lead to a run, but in the long run it's doubtful that run made all the difference in the game. I wasn't able to see much of the next two games, which is a shame because I do like to see good pitching. Adam Wainwright has proven that last year wasn't necessarily a career year, just a level that he can attain on a regular basis. After four starts, he's 3-1 with a 1.69 ERA and two complete games. Waino is going to be the team workhorse for a while, though, and is understandably supplanting Carp as the de facto team ace. He should be just hitting his prime at 28, so hopefully we have a lot of years left of seeing that big curveball and more deep-game outings. I think you probably go and give the Goat to Albert Pujols on this one. Pujols hasn't seemed right, especially this week, so to go 0-4 with a called strikeout (that, granted, was at least questionable from his point of view) and a key double play is just not what the team is used to out of Pujols. Now, given the results of Sunday, it's possible that he's starting to stir out of it, which is good news for us and bad news for the pitchers of the National League. Sunday, Brad Penny was, well, insert your own Penny/money pun here. A lot of us weren't sure what we had with him, but I think a 0.96 ERA has given us reason to think that, even though he can't keep that up all year, odds are he's going to be above-average as a third starter. With Garcia being well above average as a #5, if Kyle Lohse gets going to be an average #4 (which is well within his capabilities), this rotation is going to be the best in baseball. Pujols did get back into the groove against Matt Cain, whom he's now 8 for 12 against. Always good to get a little extra BP when you are struggling, especially since those results counted. His first-inning homer was all that Penny needed and perhaps may be a omen for how many games will be won this summer. Tough to find a Goat in this one. Lots of similar performances, as the hits were pretty evenly spaced throughout the lineup, save for Pujols's three. I guess we'll give this one to Matt Holliday, who went 0-4 with a strikeout. Because the Cardinals are winning, sitting 2 1/2 ahead of the Cubs and the only NL Central team that actually is above .500, attention can be paid to some of the smaller issues on the club, such as the St. Louis bench. Nick Stavinoha, Joe Mather, and Allen Craig aren't exactly picking splinters out of their posterior, but that's more to do with the quality of major league dugouts than it is their playing time. It's a tough dilemma for them, because how do you stay sharp and really get into a rhythm when you may only play once a week, if that, and pinch hit here and there. (And don't get me started on Bryan Anderson.) Tony La Russa hasn't shown much of his famous propensity for lineup swapping and creative playing schedules. It's tough to do with guys like Holliday, Rasmus, and Ryan Ludwick that have proven they should be out there most every day. David Freese is doing well enough that they can't even crack third, because even if Freese is out, Felipe Lopez is probably in. It makes me wonder if there won't be some other move made here soon when Jason LaRue returns this week and Anderson goes back to Memphis. Might Craig go with him and Tyler Greene come up? Especially if Lopez's arm is still barking at him, I wouldn't be surprised at such an insurance move. The Cardinals get to return home tonight and face a Braves team that is struggling, sitting at the bottom of the NL East. The pitching they face in this series won't nearly be as tough as they faced in San Francisco, and with Cincinnati (and Aaron Harang and Homer Bailey) coming in afterwards, if we aren't talking about a good offensive week for this club, there may be deeper problems than we think. Tonight the Cardinals face probably the best starter they will see all week in Tim Hudson. Hudson has a solid 1-1, 2.38 record so far this season and hit his only career home run in Busch Stadium. Here's what he's done against the current Redbirds:
Kyle Lohse looked terrible last time out, but he has had some solid work at times this year as well. Here's what he's done against the Braves:
The Cardinals also get to see what all the fuss is about with Jason Heyward. Should be fun to get to see him for four games, unless he wins one or two of them for the Braves! My weekly post at Baseball Digest will be up later this morning, so be sure to look over there for that. This afternoon, though, come back here for a project I worked all weekend on. It's an comprehensive guide to the Cardinal blogosphere. Really, you don't want to miss that. Or even if you do, humor me since I put in around eight hours on it!
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Playing Pepper 2010: Atlanta BravesPosted on February 23, 2010 at 1:31 PM
Last year before the season began, I posed five questions to a blogger for each team, so as to get to know the rest of baseball. I focus so heavily on the Cardinals that sometimes the rest of MLB can pass me by. That went very well, so much so that it spawned not only a postseason edition but was part of the impetus for the formation of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.So this year, I've brought Playing Pepper back, with a little bit of a twist. Instead of five questions, I posed 10 questions, and this year every team got the same set. Plus, tapping into those BBA connections, I sent them to every blogger representing that team in the BBA. We'll try to do two a day in a general alphabetical order, but things may change depending on responses. Atlanta Braves 2009 Finish: 86-76, third in the NL East The Braves battled last year, coming back from an early hole to be within striking distance of the wild card in the last couple of weeks. This isn't the team that won all those divisional titles, as there have been younger faces coming up and players shipped out. In Bobby Cox's last go-round as a manager, will the Braves be able to extend his final season? I asked Jim of Braving Baseball the Playing Pepper Ten. Continue ReadingGetting Run OverPosted on September 14, 2009 at 9:19 AM
Say, did anyone get the license plate of that truck?It was a pretty disappointing weekend all in all. There were glimmers of good things, but on the whole it was a dark cloud on the horizon, putting the breaks on what had been a glorious run through August and September. Let's look at the series so that we can put it behind us and move on to Florida. Friday (1-0 loss) Hero: Joel Pineiro. Sure, he wound up taking the loss, but you have to give him credit for a one-run, seven-inning outing. He really didn't do anything wrong, just couldn't get the support to fashion a win. Goat: Albert Pujols. No hits. Two strikeouts. Two errors. Not exactly his normal MVP-type night. Notes: What's extremely frustrating about this one was the fact that Matt Holliday was safe at home but was called out by the umpire. That call goes the right way, the game is tied and perhaps things take on a different complexion. Saturday (6-5 loss) Hero: Colby Rasmus. It's a tough call, but he had a pretty good all around game with two hits, a run and an RBI. Goat: Ryan Franklin. Not so tough of a call. If you are given a week off, you probably better convert your first opportunity rather than blow the save before you even get an out. Notes: Not the kind of game you wanted to see out of Kyle Lohse. You hoped that he'd be able to contribute to the postseason, but he's going to have to look a lot better than that to fulfill that wish. Of course, it sounds like he didn't have the best of things going on behind him, either. Still, the team rallied and had the lead in the ninth, which is something. Sunday (9-2 loss) Hero: Skip Schumaker. Apparently the only guy that could really figure out Javier Vazquez, as he had three of the team's seven hits. Goat: Chris Carpenter. Was that really Chris Carpenter on the mound? Allowing six runs after two were out in the inning? That's not the Carp we know and it may have done considerable damage to his Cy Young chances. Notes: This was the only non-winnable game out of the three, so that's a little encouraging. Even Carpenter on his best day would have had trouble the way the offense struggled against Vazquez. Even the off-field news was pretty pallid this weekend, as John Smoltz is missing tonight's start after getting a cortizone shot for tendinitis in his shoulder. Now, the Cardinals have a fine tradition of getting great results after shots late in the season or playoffs (see Larry Walker and Scott Rolen) but it's still not what you want to see, especially with a three-game losing streak. Because taking his place tonight is Todd Wellemeyer. I'm pretty sure no one really wanted to see Wellemeyer get another start this year, but especially not during a slide like this weekend. Apparently Tony LaRussa is starting Wellemeyer because he did well against the Marlins last year, even though he struggled against them this year and has some iffy career numbers against them. (Note to Tony: Wellemeyer did well against a lot of people last year. That was last year.) St. Louis goes up against Ricky Nolasco. It's been a rough year for a guy the Marlins thought would be an ace for them. He hasn't faced the Cardinals this year, but his career numbers indicate that maybe the offense will come alive tonight. (Holliday is 6 for 8 with 2 HR off of him, for example.) Might be a wild, high-scoring game. Enjoy it while you can, folks. Three weeks from now the season will be over and we'll be looking at post-season baseball! Cards and Braves TanglePosted on September 11, 2009 at 8:38 AM
Not much happened on the off day, which is pretty much what you want to hear this time of year. There's a nice article up at the Post-Dispatch about Brendan Ryan and how he's developed as a shortstop, but that's about it.On that topic, I will say I've been impressed with what Ryan has brought to the team this year. I initially wrote him off as another Bo Hart/Joe McEwing type, a scrappy guy that will be a fan favorite but will be exposed in regular playing time. That hasn't happened. Ryan has shown that he's got an impressive glove as well as a solid enough bat to not be a liability. You aren't going to settle him down--a day when Brendan Ryan is calm may be a day where you have to check his pulse--but he's been an asset to the team and may have solved the shortstop position for a few years going forward. St. Louis gets back to Busch tonight as they host the Braves. Joel Pineiro takes the mound tonight to keep the run of remarkable pitching going. The Braves have hit him in the past, but as we've seen time and time again this season, past performance is not indicative of future results. Pineiro faced Atlanta back in April, where he gave up just two runs in an almost-seven inning win. On the other side, the Cardinal hitters have to try to hit Jair Jurrjens. While none of the Cardinals have hit a home run against him, they've been able to put up a decent average in past encounters. Ironically, he was on the opposite side of that Pineiro game this year and had a similar line, allowing two in an even six innings. Should be an interesting game as the Cards try to chop into that magic number some more and attempt to hang on to the best record in the National League. The stat of the day over at the Baseball-Reference blog has to do with the leading winner in the National League. It's pretty nice to see Adam Wainwright's name on that list of pitchers and hopefully it is an indication of things to come! Enjoy your weekend, but remember what today is. Never forget! Catching Up With The CardinalsPosted on May 5, 2009 at 2:30 PM
Hello, my name is Cardinal70. You might remember me from such posts as Reading The T-Shirts and Casey In Today's Baseball...... OK, maybe it's not been that long, but it's been a while since I've had a chance to write about the Cardinals. Since we have a week's worth of games, I'm not going to sit down and talk about all of them. We'll just hit the Heroes and Goats and then look at the overview and what's coming next. Monday at Atlanta (Win 3-2) Hero: Joel Pineiro Goat: Albert Pujols Notes: Normally Brendan Ryan's 0 for 4 would have given him the Goat tag, but his spectacular defense in this game spares him. Pujols was 1-5 but left 6 men on, something that could have easily haunted the Cards. Tuesday at Atlanta (Loss 2-1) Hero: Yadier Molina Goat: Kyle McClellan Notes: Kyle Lohse had an outstanding game, but he did walk four, which is why Molina got the nod. Wednesday at Atlanta (Win 5-3) Hero: Ryan Franklin Goat: Colby Rasmus Notes: The closer doesn't get the Hero tag very often, so since he went four outs, I'll give it to him. Adam Wainwright would have been in line but five walks is not good at all. Thursday at Washington (Win 9-4) Hero: Albert Pujols Goat: Joe Thurston Notes: Nice to see Tyler Greene make his debut, even though it came at the expense of Ryan heading to the DL. Friday at Washington (Win 6-2) Hero: Albert Pujols Goat: Skip Schumaker Notes: Albert's two extra runs gave him the slightest of nods over Chris Duncan. Saturday at Washington (Loss 6-1) Hero: Colby Rasmus Goat: Chris Duncan Notes: Duncan's 0 for 4 was bad enough, but the error didn't help matters. I just missed watching Colby's homer, sitting down to the computer and catching it on Twitter. Sunday at Washington, rained out Monday vs. Philadelphia (Loss 6-1) Hero: Joe Thurston Goat: Kyle Lohse Notes: If he's not using the HBP as an excuse, then I can't either. But I do think that had to have some effect. And a Cardinal starter has to be fully healthy to even have a chance against Ryan Howard. So that brings us to the present. After the jump, more talk and looking forward to tonight's game. Continue Reading Filed Under: Atlanta Braves
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Splitting The Cardinal WeekendPosted on March 16, 2009 at 9:14 AM
A win and a loss this weekend. While neither were all that dramatic, they are worth taking a look at.The best part about Saturday's game against the Braves was that it was on KSDK and those games get put on a station down here, so I got to get my first look at the 2009 Cardinals. The fact that they pulled out a win was nice as well. Adam Wainwright worried me early in the game. He was giving up a lot of hits, though he did a good job of keeping runs off the board. He settled down later in the game and you'll take five innings, one earned run any day of the week. The bullpen did good work as well. It was interesting to see Josh Kinney come in to get the save. He really looked good doing it. That slider can be a deadly weapon when its on. Right now, I think I'm fine with any of the young guns, including Kinney, closing down games. Even though I'm not a big fan, I've got to admit Ryan Franklin has had a good spring as well. He gave up just one hit in two innings and lowered his spring ERA to 1.50. If he can keep that going forward, he wouldn't be as nerve-wracking in the ninth. I'm not sure that he can, though I figure he'll get some save opportunities early in the year. I think Tony La Russa is really looking forward to some mixing and matching in that closer role. Looking at the hitters, Skip Schumaker had another good day at the plate, going two for three and making no errors at second. In fact, the only error of the game came from Brendan Ryan when he came in for Skip on an easy ball that he just didn't take enough care with. He was too worried about ending the game to keep his eye on it. I'd be surprised if La Russa didn't notice. Not something you want to do when you are fighting for a slot. There wasn't much else that happened, but watching it definitely got me fired up for another season. Just three more weeks! Sunday's game was another good day for the pitching staff, though the offense didn't do a lot. Khalil Greene had a couple of hits, keeping his strong spring going. Brendan Ryan made up for that error on Saturday by driving in the only run of the game. On the mound, though, the Cards shone, for the most part. Kyle Lohse gave up an early home run, but pitched five innings and didn't allow any more to cross the plate. He struck out five as well, which helped. You figure you are going to get some value out of Lohse this year and possibly next year. The end of the contract, though, is where there is going to be some pain. Adam Ottovino might have learned something playing for Italy in the World Baseball Classic. He struck out the side in his appearance, which is something he's got the talent to do more of. I think that if he can get his stuff under control (which is what he started doing some last year, I believe) he can be a pretty good prospect and someone to keep an eye on. The only bad outing came from Jess Todd. One inning plus, two hits and, unfortunately, two walks. Sounds like it was an off day for Todd, who's been pretty effective this spring and could be one of the first callups from Memphis this year. More cuts should be coming this week with an eye toward the 25 man roster. A lot of the questions going into camp have been answered in the affirmative. The most difficult cuts may be in the bullpen. If all three young guns are carried, plus the two lefties and then five starters, that leaves two slots available. Figuring out exactly who takes those positions may be a lot of what is decided this week. Chris Duncan pulled down a 69.5% rating from 45 voters over the weekend. I gave Chris a 70, because while I'm not a huge fan of his off-field persona and his defense is pretty iffy sometimes, he can definitely hit when he's healthy and is an asset to the team. I think he's proven that to some degree this spring. We'll be doing this for another week, unless there is huge demand for more (or to quit early). Today, we go back to the broadcast booth and ask your opinion about John Rooney. He's sitting in Jack's chair, though obviously no one could replace the master. Is he a worthy successor? Does he drive you nuts? Leave your percentage approval in the comments! Filed Under: Approval Ratings
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