Few Signs of Life

Another day, another loss.  And, at least offensively, it seems to be getting worse.  You know when Albert Pujols, as hot as he's been, goes 0-4 with a strikeout, it's probably not going to be your night.

Six hits on the night, but four of them came from Troy Glaus (who gets the Hero nod due to his first-inning HR after his lengthy absence) and Aaron Miles.  The way Looper started out, it looked like that could be enough.  Then he slipped in the sixth and Kyle McClellan continued the descent.  And the official closing of the NL Central chase occurred as well with the Cubs winning.

On August 1, this team was tied for second, four games behind the Chicago Cubs for the divisional lead.  Since then, they've gone 16-22 and fallen to fourth place, 13.5 back.  The most frustrating thing, of course, is that the wild-card race has been there for the taking, but the Cardinals weren't able to step up to the task.

There's been a lot of talk about St. Louis's recent Septembers.  Honestly, I'd not thought about it being that bad.  I still had it in my head that the Cardinals were strong finishers, though I knew they'd stumbled some recently.  Of course, we know the last three years were bad, but I remember when they would power down the stretch earlier in the decade.  At the time, the thought was that the team was fresher than others due to LaRussa's constant lineup changes.  I think there was some truth to that.

Bernie postulates that injuries are the biggest problem in the last few years and he's right.  There have been a lot of crippling injuries in the past.  However, the Cardinals have also been loath to bring up a full contingent of minor league help and so, as this year, play short-handed compared to their opponents.  If I remember correctly, there were only about 8 extra players (callups and activations) after the deadline.  Then you had/have Ankiel, Glaus, Molina and Carpenter go down, so you basically have 29 guys when other teams might have close to 40.  When some of those guys (McClellan) are wearing down, having more options would seem to be a good thing.

BTW, I know this isn't representative, but take a look at the box score from last night.  Theoretically, this would be the time to evaluate for 2009, right?  There's only one young guy (as it were) on there, and that's McClellan, who has pitched all year and they pretty much know what they have with him.  I know it won't happen, but it'd be nice to see a couple of the minor league hitters get a chance the last couple of weeks.

Enough about all that.  The Cardinals try to keep from extending their season-long losing streak (great time to have that happen, huh) tonight by sending Todd Wellemeyer out to face Aaron Harang.  Wellemeyer will be in the running for Most Surprising Player when the Cardinal Blogger Awards return in November.  He's only pitched once against the Reds this year, allowing four runs in six innings.  Which means the current lineup of Reds hasn't seen him much, though he'll need to be wary of Edwin Encarnacion.

Harang has had a much tougher year than people expected.  4-16 with an ERA of almost 5?  Not numbers you are used to seeing from the Cincinnati ace.  St. Louis touched him for eight runs in less than four innings last time, which explains his 0-2, 10.61 ERA against them this year.  Historically, Pujols has done well against him, but Izturis is 0-17 and likely won't be in the lineup tonight.

It'd be nice to think that the Cards would break out of it tonight.  However, Harang's September has been pretty strong, so if he's getting back to form (and the Cardinals are still in their lackluster stage) it could be another long night.

Also, Get Up, Baby! has their Top 7 prospects up.  And The Rundown at the Riverfront Times did theirs a while back, but I just stumbled across it today.  See how they compare to the rest of the UCB!


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