Blogs By FansC70 At The Bat
Sponsor


Get your tickets from Bubba! Cheap St. Louis Cardinals Tickets and more, including tickets for the next MLB All-Star Game. Bubba's got Boston Red Sox Tickets and New York Yankees Tickets



Authentic, large selection of Cardinals memorabilia, guaranteed and certified.

Subscribe
RSS Feed

Archives

Players

Categories


With all of the St Louis tickets out there, Cardinals tickets and Rams tickets make for great presents. GoTickets.com can fill all of your sports tickets needs, just check out our testimonials!

Home Stretch

Posted on March 25, 2008 at 9:24 AM
Filed Under: Baseball | Boston Red Sox | Oakland A's | St. Louis Cardinals | United Cardinal Bloggers
A while back, the United Cardinal Bloggers (some of who did the roundtable that you can find below) put out their predictions for the way the different standings around the league would pan out.  Daniel at Redbirds Fun told me at the time he typically waited until closer to the regular season, and you can now find his selections at his blog.

Not your traditional Opening Day, but the Red Sox and Athletics have kicked the season off in Japan.  Looks like Boston's in good shape to win this one in extra innings.  Our network friends at Who Made You Mirabelli? and Beantown West will likely be all over this, albeit from the Boston perspective.

Cards won another one yesterday, 8-4 over the Twins.  13 hits for the Redbirds, so most everyone had a good day.  Even Cesar Izturis drove in two with a single in his only AB.  You know it's a good day when something like that happens!  (He did get caught stealing, however.)  Colby Rasmus again made the trip and drew a walk.  Being that the Cards don't have another road trip, that may be his last appearance with the big squad in the spring.

Brad Thompson threw a pretty decent outing, two runs in five innings.  He even struck out four, which usually isn't a big part of his game.  The only pitcher with a rough day was Chris Perez, who allowed two runs in the ninth and was yanked before he could finish it.  That probably seals his demotion to Memphis, but he will see St. Louis sometime this summer, barring injury.

It really is the home stretch for the Cardinals.  They have home games today and tomorrow against the Nationals and Orioles, respectively.  Then, on Thursday, they are the "road team" for the last Fins and Feathers game against ST roommates Florida.  Friday and Saturday has them playing in Springfield, MO against their AA team before heading to St. Louis to start off the season on Monday.

Joel Pineiro pitched against AAA batters yesterday and did pretty well.   According to the article by Matthew Leach, if all goes well Pineiro could be back with the major league club by mid-April.  I don't know what the odds are of that happening.  I'm sure they go up dramatically if he doesn't report pain today.

There's an article up today about the pitching of Thompson and Todd Wellemeyer.  I don't know that they should bear the brunt of the outrage of Anthony Reyes not being in the rotation.  I still don't think Wellemeyer can keep up his numbers if he had to stay in the rotation for a whole year.  Thompson would probably have a better chance, but I do think of him as a reliever as well.  The biggest problem is that we've got these guys plus Braden Looper when our top prospect of a couple of years ago languishes.  It just doesn't make a lot of sense.

Rick Ankiel is hitting .369 for the spring, coupling the average with power.  If anyone had said 8 years ago that Ankiel would be our cleanup hitter, it would have been a joke about a weak offense.  He's definitely developed into a reasonable alternative in that slot.  Of course, the jury is out on whether he can continue to be effective until the regular season gets started, but I think he'll be fine.

This offense really has me excited about the 2008 season.  There should be a lot less of "oh, we aren't going to score" this year.  Last year, if Pujols or Molina weren't coming up, a lot of times scoring opportunities were wasted.  There will be a lot more firepower in the lineup this year, it appears.

Mr. Goold is on the ball again today, bringing us the lineup.  Anthony Reyes is on the mound and hopefully will have another great start.

  1. Skip Schumaker, RF
  2. Brian Barton, LF
  3. Albert Pujols, 1B
  4. Troy Glaus, 3B
  5. Rick Ankiel, CF
  6. Jason LaRue, C
  7. Aaron Miles, 2B
  8. Anthony Reyes, RHP
  9. Cesar Izturis, SS

The bullpen is stocked with LHP Ron Villone, LHP Randy Flores, RHP Ryan Franklin, RHP Jason Isringhausen, RHP Kelvin Jimenez, RHP  Hugo Castellanos.



Leave a comment




Leave a comment


Spring Training 08

Search



C70 At The Bat on Facebook

United Cardinal Bloggers

Other Cardinal Blogs

Recommended Cardinal Forum

Other Cardinal Sites

General Baseball Blogs/Sites
St. Louis Cardinals Ticket - Sports News & Rumors

Heroes
Matt Holliday (16)
Albert Pujols (16)
Adam Wainwright (11)
Jaime Garcia (10)
Ryan Ludwick (9)
Skip Schumaker (8)
Chris Carpenter (7)
Colby Rasmus (7)
Yadier Molina (6)
Brendan Ryan (4)
David Freese (3)
Jon Jay (3)
Felipe Lopez (3)
Brad Penny (3)
Pedro Feliz (2)
Blake Hawksworth (2)
Jason LaRue (2)
Nick Stavinoha (2)
Allen Craig (1)
Kyle McClellan (1)
Aaron Miles (1)
Jason Motte (1)
Fernando Salas (1)
Jake Westbrook (1)
Randy Winn (1)

2009 Top Hero: Albert Pujols (28)
2008 Top Hero: Albert Pujols (25)

Goats
Brendan Ryan (12)
Matt Holliday (10)
Yadier Molina (10)
Skip Schumaker (10)
Albert Pujols (9)
Felipe Lopez (7)
Colby Rasmus (7)
Dennys Reyes (7)
Ryan Franklin (6)
Kyle Lohse (6)
Chris Carpenter (4)
David Freese (4)
Blake Hawksworth (4)
Ryan Ludwick (4)
Adam Wainwright (4)
Mitchell Boggs (2)
Trever Miller (2)
Jason Motte (2)
Allen Craig (1)
Jaime Garcia (1)
Tyler Greene (1)
Joe Mather (1)
Kyle McClellan (1)
Adam Ottavino (1)
Brad Penny (1)
Nick Stavinoha (1)
Jeff Suppan (1)
PJ Walters (1)
Randy Winn (1)

2009 Top Goats: Rick Ankiel and Todd Wellemeyer (13)
2008 Top Goat: Troy Glaus (13)

    Cardinal Nation Approval Ratings (March 2010)
    Albert Pujols 98.7% (up 0.8%)
    Adam Wainwright 95.6%
    Chris Carpenter 93.6%
    Yadier Molina 92.0% (down 1.4%)
    Dave Duncan 87.0% (up 2.8%)
    John Mozeliak 86.1%
    Matt Holliday 84.5%
    Bill DeWitt 83.0% (up 2.8%)
    Skip Schumaker 81.1%
    Tony La Russa 80.6% (up 1.5%)
    Mike Shannon 80.3% (down 11.3%)
    Colby Rasmus 76.8% (up 10.8%)
    John Rooney 76.2% (down 4.7%)
    Mark McGwire 73.2%
    Ryan Franklin 69.7%
    Kyle Lohse 66.8% (down 10.5%)
    Al Hrbrosky 46.2% (down 7.7%)

    2009
    Rick Ankiel 83.9%
    Chris Duncan 69.1%


    Looking for St. Louis Cardinals Tickets?  TicketCity is your source for New York Yankees Tickets and World Series Tickets.

    Looking for Cardinals tickets? Stop by OnlineSeats. We’ve got Blues seats and even Rams games. Go to the coasts as well and catch a Celtics game or get Dodgers tickets.

    Referrals