While the Cat is away...

As you ran down your bookmarks this morning and clicked on C70 At The Bat, I'm sure you had no idea what you were about to find.

Hello, my name is Bill Ivie and I am the Executive Editor of i70baseball.com, a Baseball Digest affiliate site dedicated to all things Cardinals and Royals related.  I also work for BaseballDigest.com and can be found regularly on Blog Talk Radio hosting the United Cardinal Blogger Radio Hour as well as my own I-70 Baseball Radio.

Wait...where you going?  I promise, you are in the right place.  Don't leave just yet.

Now that introductions are over, let me explain.

Daniel, your normally gracious host, has gone on vacation.  In an effort to ensure that his fans, both of you, would not be bored this week without him, he left the keys in the care of some faithful friends and bloggers that promised to provide some crap for you to read great content that will keep you from missing Daniel too awful much.

It is more than a pleasure for most of us to help out Daniel and we can only hope that you are pleased with what we bring. 

What should we talk about this morning, you ask?  Well...

I Can't Even Feel Frustrated Anymore

This team is not serious, are they?  I sit down every day and read about how the team under performs, fails to deliver, and how everyone seems completely surprised by this.  I do not think you can be surprised by this anymore.  The only surprise I get everyday is when I get up in the morning and do not see a headline that begins with "Cardinals Trade For" in the Post Dispatch.

Seriously, people, this is no longer a surprise.  This team is struggling offensively and has all season long.  Do we need pitching help to get to October?  Yes.  Suppan and Hawksworth are not going to cut it.  But the bigger need here is to produce runs. 

It is a simple rule in sports.  To win, you must score more than the other guy.  To outscore your opponent you must first score.  The 2010 roster of guys wearing the Birds on the Bat have been shut out 10 times this season as of today.  That equals the total for 2009.  They were shut out in back-to-back games for the first time since the first half of this decade.  I would love to see a rotation for the next few years that consisted of Carpenter, Wainwright and Oswalt, but it does not fix the obvious problem.  This team needs help producing runs.

More than that, this team needs a shake-up.  The trade deadline is just under two days at this point.  If this team is to produce the World Series that we were all crowing about at the beginning of the year, changes need to be made.  I think most players, within reason, should be available.  Can we grab a known commodity for Colby Rasmus?  Then do it.  Does Skip Schumaker have a future on another club that can bring us a solid run producer?  The deal should be done.  Can we get a solid return for the rights to golden child Shelby Miller?  Then ship him away.  I would much rather be writing a column three years from now about how we traded the great Shelby Miller for a trophy in 2010 then finish this season writing about how we let the 11th Championship in team history get away because we would not part with a player that has yet to prove himself.

Tune in for the rest of the week as we hijack this site and bring you some commentary from different voices.  Do everyone that writes a favor and visit the site that they come from.  I promise, before Daniel returns (and kills all of us), you will find a few new additions to your daily bookmarks because of it.  I will see you again on Thursday.

Have a great weekend and, as always, thanks for reading.


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