As the Bullpen Turns (C70 At The Bat)

As the Bullpen Turns

After Tuesday night, I was pretty much ready to write off the Cardinals. After Wednesday night, well, I'm not on the edge of the ledge, though I'm still out the window.

Let's deal with Tuesday first. I knew that Jason Isringhausen's save in Atlanta was a dicey one, but I had hoped that with its successful ending, we were turning a corner and the bullpen would start to fall into place. Apparently, not so much. Granted, I still can't believe Ron Villone gave up a home run to Andruw Jones--just his third of the year--but that wasn't the difference in that inning. When you come into a game with a three-run lead and no one on base, get the first out, and then blow up, that's probably the last chance you'll get.

What do you do with him? Heck if I know. He'll pitch is some unimportant innings, but if it's close anywhere along the way, I don't know that you can trot him out there without major cringing. He'll never get to 300 saves now, at least not in St. Louis and likely not anywhere. It's a sharp and sad fall, but there's nothing else to do but move on.

Thankfully Ryan Ludwick was able to save the game with a long ball in the 11th. Falling further behind the Cubs and Brewers after that game would have been tough to swallow and a lot more white flags would have been raised. Nice to see Pujols go deep as well as Kennedy coming out of hibernation to get three hits.

But most importantly, it was great to see Chris Carpenter looking like Chris Carpenter. If the rain delay hadn't happened, he'd probably have gone seven innings or so. Not sure that it would have changed the outcome of the game--Thompson and McClellan did a wonderful job getting it to the ninth--but still, to see him in control and dominating a team made most every Cardinal fan giddy. It's just too bad he didn't get the win.

So then we come to last night. I'll say I had a very bad feeling about the game. The Cubs and Brewers had already won, which means the Redbirds needed to as well, but Joel Pineiro was on the mound. And if there's anyone that can up leads, it's Pineiro. Between him and the bullpen, I didn't figure anything was safe.

He proved me right early, allowing the 1-0 lead to turn into a 3-1 deficit in a matter of two innings. Thankfully, though, Derek Lowe wasn't on at all, allowing the grand slam to Albert Pujols and then another shot to Ludwick before they could get him out of the ball game.

Even at 8-3, though, I wasn't completely comfortable, though Pineiro did well and took the game into the eighth with a 9-4 lead. Brad Thompson came in and, for all the good he's done lately, including Tuesday night, he wasn't on. Suddenly it's 9-6 and it's looking bad all over again.

But into the breach steps newly recalled Chris Perez. LaRussa has said it's basically "closer by committee" and that maybe you pitch your best reliever in the seventh if that's when the game seems to hinge. That may be so, and maybe that's what he'll do, but after last night's outing, it seems best to leave Perez in the typical closer role for now and see what happens. A five out save, including two strikeouts and he brought some needed relief to the team. We'll see what TLR does this afternoon if the same situation occurs, but I hope he calls Perez back in.

So the Cards still stay 6 behind the Cubs and a half game behind Milwaukee. A win today would gain a 1/2 game on each of those teams, since they are idle. We'll look at the starters here in a bit.

First, though, let's look at some other things I've not talked about around the team. I didn't get a chance to really talk about the fact that Chris Duncan is out for the year and possibly his career. It's pretty amazing he was as successful as he was if he was in that much pain. I've often thought we are so hard on athletes that aren't producing without really knowing what is going on. Sometimes there's a reason. Hopefully he'll be able to return and show the Chris Duncan we saw in 2006 and early 2007.

Also, I was pretty surprised to see that they released Matt Clement. One of the reasons I was expecting a stronger pitching staff this season was the signing of Clement in the offseason. That was assuming he was healthy, something that the Cardinal staff assured us he was. Apparently, not so much. Still, it seemed strange that they gave up on him at this time of the season. Did they really want to bump someone up to Triple A? Was Clement causing problems in the clubhouse? Or did they just decide, hey, it's not going to work out, let's not waste each other's time?

Then the Cardinals go out and get Felipe Lopez. VEB summed this one up pretty well yesterday. It really makes no sense, especially when you then go and stick him in the outfield. Don't we have enough of those, really? I know Ankiel is hurting (and really should be put on the DL--why LaRussa thinks that having a guy that might hit it yard is worth wasting a bench spot, especially when you have to pinch run for him if he doesn't go deep, is beyond me. Didn't make a lot of sense when he did it with McGwire, either) but really, this is the best we can do?

And, apparently, the Cards are looking to put Wainwright in the closer role when he returns. Hopefully with the emergence of Perez, that won't be necessary. I think Wainwright is much more valuable in the rotation, giving 6 innings or so every five days, than even closing games. And, if they do go through with the four man rotation for the last six weeks of the year, having one of Carp, Wainwright, Lohse and Wellemeyer (or Looper) seems pretty strong and has you ready for the playoffs. Because if the Cards are going anywhere in October, they are going to need Wainwright's power arm in the rotation.

Wow, going from writing off the season to talking about October in one entry. A good bullpen outing will do that to you!

OK, let's see what we have for this afternoon. Kyle Lohse takes the mound against Clayton Kershaw. Kershaw's been highly touted, but he's gone through the normal rookie struggles. That said, he's thrown six scoreless innings in each of his last two starts. His major league debut was against the Cardinals, who he limited to two runs in six innings. Whether having seen him before will help, I don't know.

Lohse missed the Dodgers the last time around, but has faced some of them before. Looks like Andruw Jones might get a start with his career success against the Cardinal hurler. Whether that will translate due to Jones's weak season and Lohse's career one, we'll have to wait and see.

The Cards have a good chance to finish off the sweep and then get focused on taking the series from the Cubs this weekend. If they have a run in them, now's the time to start it.

BTW, UCB members, I plan on adding a couple of discussion topics to the Facebook group today. Be sure to check them out and comment. Thanks!

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