It Came From The Backyard

In the old days, before the draft, Ryan Howard probably would have wound up in the Cardinal organization.  Local guy, good talent, the bird dog would have gotten the scout and he'd have signed a deal with the Redbirds.

Nowadays, of course, it doesn't work that way, but Howard apparently thinks it should have.  He holds some sort of grudge against the Cardinals, at least.  With two more home runs yesterday, he has 11 against his old hometown team.  With his low batting average and propensity for striking out, pitchers are tempted to pitch to him.  From now on, though, it may be wise to consider walking him.

As noted in the PD game story, July has been a terrible month for the Cardinals.  They are averaging 2.7 runs a game and sporting a 3-6 record that could have easily been worse.  (It's sad that the Cardinals have scored 25 runs in nine games when the Phillies earlier in the year just needed one game to get to 20 against the Redbird staff.)

The UCB roundtable is going on via e-mail and one of the questions is what is the biggest need, the bullpen or the offense.  I said the bullpen when I made my answers, but with these kind of numbers, I very well may have been wrong.  You have to figure that things will turn around somewhat--Glaus will get hot again, Ludwick will make some adjustments--so maybe that offense is there hidden.  But it may need a boost from an outside source.

Anyway, let's lay out the labels.  Hero would probably go to Albert Pujols, who was 2 for 4.  If anyone had been on in front of him, maybe he could have done some damage.  Which leads us to our Goat, Adam Kennedy.  0-4 in the leadoff spot is not what the team needed.

So the Cards fall into third, a half-game behind Milwaukee and 4.5 behind the Cubs.  It'll take a good series against the Pirates to get second back, I believe.

The series starts with Kyle Lohse going against Zach Duke.  Lohse has done pretty well against the Pirate hitters, which may be a very good thing if the offense doesn't start clicking.  Keeping the score down would be a very good thing.  Duke has quietly started to pitch pretty well.  The Cardinals hung a loss on him May 30, but after that he had a 3.13 ERA in June and continued to drop his ERA until his last outing against the Brewers.  St. Louis has had success against him, especially Pujols.

In other news, the Cardinals put Rasmus on the DL.  It doesn't seem to be a torn groin, but they are going to do an MRI on it.  That doesn't really sound good.  Hopefully it's something that a couple of weeks of rest will take care of, because I want Mozeliak to have that option of Rasmus coming up when he's talking trade for the rest of the month.  Putting Rasmus in the lineup could be the spark the offense needs.

Brian Burwell writes a good column on the end of Mark Mulder's career.   It really is a sad thing when someone can't do what they love anymore.

That's probably it for the weekend for me.  I'll be back on Monday to catch up.


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