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Recently in Kansas City Royals CategoryBringing Winning BackPosted on June 20, 2011 at 10:21 AM
Apparently, I'm just not supposed to be on the wrong side of the Mississippi when it's baseball season. The Cards went out and dropped the seven games I missed while spending time in Ohio, yet won two dramatic ones when I was back ensconced in my home this weekend. Let's do the wrapup of the last half of the week, then get into some of the more current topics. Remember, I didn't watch much of any of these games (even this weekend was sporadic) so if I'm completely off base, be sure to let me know in the comments.Wednesday (10-0 loss at Washington) Hero: Jon Jay. Two of the team's three hits, and since nobody walked in the game, it was pretty much all that the Cards could muster. Goat: Ryan Franklin. Kyle McClellan didn't pitch all that well, but Franklin made sure there was no rally to be had, completely blowing up with four earned in his inning and a third. Notes: McClellan had some defensive problems behind him, including two errors from Albert Pujols at third base, and was limited in his pitch count in his first start off the disabled list. Hopefully he'll be stronger tomorrow against the Phillies. Thursday (7-4 loss at Washington in 10) Hero: Yadier Molina. His home run in the ninth gave the team some hope, pushing it to extra innings. Goat: Fernando Salas. Salas gave up the game-losing long ball. While Danny Espinosa has a number of homers this year, he's a guy that you probably should be able to get when the game is on the line. Notes: The team rallied, which was nice to see. Homers by Pujols and Molina erased the deficit, but they never could get over the top. A strong game from Matt Holliday as well in his first game back from the land of the injured. Friday (5-4 loss vs. Kansas City) Hero: Lance Berkman. Only one hit, but a big one as he drove in three of the four runs. Goat: Albert Pujols. No hits for Albert (though he drew a walk) and had the error that allowed the go-ahead run to score. Notes: Tough game for Chris Carpenter to lose, apparently. Lots of raves over how he pitched, but he did allow 10 hits. I know one of the major tenants of modern sabermetrics is that a pitcher has no control of where the ball is hit or if it falls for a hit, but still, that's a lot of dinks and dribblers. Still, I didn't see that one and it may have been that he was much more effective than the stat line indicates. Saturday (5-4 win vs. Kansas City) Hero: Matt Holliday. Game winning home run in the eighth will do that for a guy. Goat: Jake Westbrook. There wasn't an obvious goat in this one. Westbrook did well, but that last home run to Alex Gordon almost added to the losing streak. Notes: Great work by Colby Rasmus to get on base in the eighth against a lefty. Good night for Ryan Theriot as well, with two hits in the leadoff slot. Bullpen did a very solid job as well, with Salas coming in and locking things down. Sunday (5-4 win vs. Kansas City) Hero: Skip Schumaker. Game winning home run in the ninth will do that for a guy. Goat: Fernando Salas. Giving up a game tying home run to Alcides Escobar? I know Escobar's been hot, but he's not a home run hitter. Salas couldn't hit his target at all in that at-bat and finally paid the price. Notes: Pujols was having a stellar day until he had to leave (and we'll get to that). Andrew Brown had a nice day also, with a couple of hits and two RBI. Jaime Garcia was inefficient, though he left with a lead. The problem is he left with one out in the sixth, which left a lot of innings for the bullpen. I want to talk some more about the pitching, but that may have to wait until tomorrow's post. In the last week, there have been a lot of roster moves. To sum them up, besides the activations of McClellan and Holliday, Tyler Greene, Mark Hamilton, Lance Lynn, Matt Carpenter have been sent down to Memphis, while Maikel Cleto and Pete Kozma have come back up. The Cards are back to the 13 pitcher roster makeup, but with the starters not going deep in games, it's more of a necessity now that it was last time. Now we get to the really big story. Pujols left yesterday's game with a wrist injury after being run into by Wilson Betemit. I didn't see that play, being out at my parents and following the US Open with my father, but noted on the box score that Pujols had gone out of the game. As Bernie Miklasz writes, it was a very scary moment. I'm sure so many people flashed back to Scott Rolen and Hee Seop Choi and we know how bad that situation was. Right now, the positive news is that it looks like it's just a sprain, though there will be more evaluation done today to see how severe it is. The Cards are in a better position to replace Pujols's production than in some years, with Holliday continuing to hit and having Berkman slide into the first base slot. That said, Pujols has brought the mystique back, causing pitchers to focus on how they are pitching and who they want to beat them. A little bit of that swagger, that intimidation, is gone without Pujols. You hope it's a mild thing, where he can miss the Philadelphia series and have no lingering effects. Even a 15-day DL stint would be better than him playing through it with sapped power and the potential for a long-term issue. However, it's not broken, so we have to be thankful for that and hope the team can come together and play good baseball for however long he's off the field. Speaking of injured players (which we've done a lot this season), it looks like the Cards may be getting a bit healthy. David Freese will be playing for Memphis starting tonight and Nick Punto will be playing in Springfield this week. Both hope to be ready next Monday and could really help out the team, especially if Pujols is out for an extended period of time. It'd be nice to see this team at fairly full strength, wouldn't it? Off-day today, so we'll take a look at the opener of the Philly series tomorrow. Thanks to all of those that so capably filled in while I was gone and I hope you aren't disappointed by the downgrade in quality today!  Filed Under: Heroes and Goats
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Why the Royals and Cardinals envy each other: a series previewPosted on June 17, 2011 at 2:54 PM
Life and sports run in cycles. The weekend series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals will showcase two teams at very different points in their respective cycles. The Royals would certainly like to be where the Cardinals are now. Championship flags flying, a superstar player and currently spitting distance from 1st place. The quest to get to that point in the cycle has been fruitless since the mid 1980's. Clearly not every cycle is on the same time-line. Meanwhile, the Cardinals are trying to figure out how to get where the Royals currently sit. Obviously, they don't want to be under .500 and trying to over-com decades of irrelevance. However, they are faced with an aging and increasingly expensive roster. Time will continue to march on and those older and declining players will have to be replaced by young talent - exactly what the Royals have by the truck load. Thus placing realistic fans in an odd position of coveting what their opponent has. The Royals will be taunting the Busch faithful this weekend with Eric Hosmer at first base and Mike Moustakas at third. Combined, they will make roughly $800k this season. Those three guys, along with the under-appreciated Billy Butler and the resurgent Alex Gordon, make up a decent middle of the lineup. Manager Ned Yost is going to have to make a decision between playing Hosmer and Butler due to the National League's penchant for putting bats in the hands of the truly unskilled 1/9th of the time. The starting rotation isn't quite as young and talented as the lineup, but the Royals will put Danny Duffy on the hill on Sunday. He'll be making his 7th career start and is coming off of a pretty decent one in Oakland. He'll be the encore to Felipe Paulino - a recent acquisition from the Rockies, and Vin Mazzarro - who is semi-famous for allowing 14 runs in less than three innings. Suffice to say, neither of them will likely set the world on fire and highlights a major issue for the Royals. The bullpen however is a completely different story. It's one of the finest in the game today with every pitcher pulling their weight. Closer Joakim Soria has been the least effective guy in the bullpen, but has seemed to come around lately. Former University of Missouri pitcher Aaron Crow is the primary setup man and he is typically preceded by any number of talented young relief pitchers. The Royals aren't likely a contender in 2011. Picking and choosing players to keep an eye on is a much better way, I believe, to preview this upcoming series than laying out a team vs team comparison. I'm going to assume that if you read this blog, you're already familiar with the team that will be wearing red. These games mean a lot to the Cardinals in the context of
this season's division race. For the Royals, it's more about developing young
talent and showcasing a few players for the trade deadline. That's not to say
the team itself doesn't care about winning, they'll be doing their damnedest to
do that. It's just that priorities shift depending on where a franchise is in
it's cycle. The Cardinals are standing at third with two outs trying to figure
out a way to score one more run. The Royals are on first, with no outs hoping to
score a bunch of runs. The result isn't pre-determined, which is exactly the
reason we'll be watching. Nick Scott is a contributor to Royals Authority, writes a Royals blog for the Lawrence Journal-World and is host of the Broken Bat Single podcast. You can follow him on Twitter or on Facebook. A Shaky WeekendPosted on May 23, 2011 at 12:05 PM
It's been a busy time the last week, but I've got a chance here to catch my breath and get caught up on what's been going on with the Cardinals. It's been a busy few days! Wednesday (5-1 win vs. Houston) Hero: Kyle Lohse just keeps going out and putting up zeros. He allowed a run in the seventh, but otherwise handcuffed the Astros. Granted, Houston's not the strongest team out there, but the more Lohse does that, the better Cardinal fans feel. Goat: A bit of a tough one, because everyone did just enough to possibly be out of the running. Matt Holliday only saw one pitch before leaving with a quad injury--a guy that sees one pitch can't be the goat, right? Lance Berkman also went 0-1 before leaving hurt. Can't be him. Allen Craig went 0-3, but he walked and drove in a run, so I guess we'll go with him even in spite of the RBI. Notes: Pete Kozma was called up before this game when Nick Punto was placed on the disabled list. It wasn't necessarily a merit-based promotion--Kozma has had a tendency to be moved up no matter what his results at the current level are and was hitting under .250 at Memphis--but more to the point he was the only middle infielder left on the 40-man roster. Of course, since he was a shortstop all through the minor leagues, he made his first big league appearance at....second base. He also has played third base since he's been up. Not sure that he's actually play short yet, though. (In-game edit: noted that's where he played Sunday.) Yadier Molina went three for four and is having a career year with the bat. A lot of people seemed to write his offensive production possibilities off after his weak first half in 2010, but it's pretty clear that either Molina has learned something or Albert Pujols has loaned him whatever hitting mojo he has. If the latter is the case, I think it's time for AP to get that back now. Thursday (4-2 win vs. Houston) Hero: Allen Craig. Maybe that'll make up for the Goat tag. Craig went 3-4 with a big home run to give the Cardinals a bit of cushion. Goat: Tyler Greene. 0-4 with two strikeouts, edging out Jon Jay (0-4 with 1 K) and Pujols (0-3). Notes: Another good outing for Kyle McClellan, who got through the 8th using only 90 pitches. So far there's crow to be eaten in regards to McClellan, whose only test left is the length of the season. Can he still be effective in August and September? So far, he's not given many reasons to doubt that he can. Friday (3-0 loss at Kansas City) Hero: Jon Jay. Jay went 2-4, the only Cardinal with multiple hits, as no Redbird dented the plate. Goat: Tyler Greene. Colby Rasmus had one more hitless at-bat than Greene, but Greene hit into one of those pervasive double plays (with the bases loaded, of course) plus went 0-2 with runners in scoring position. A lot of very smart people like Greene and think he'd be fine if just left alone to play. Perhaps so, but he's not really showing any of that in his extended trial. Notes: Chris Carpenter was cruising along until the seventh when it all came unraveled for him. Ironically when compared to Sunday's game, it was Carpenter who was left in too long. Perhaps a shorter leash might be needed for him? Carp seems to be showing his age a bit this season, with more problems and blowups than in the past. With all that, though (and, for once, some helpful work out of Trever Miller, who did still walk the first guy he faced), he gave up three runs and if the offense had been running like it normally was, he'd have possibly gotten a win. Also should note that Ryan Franklin pitched a scoreless inning in relief after sitting for about a week. Good to see him have a successful outing. Saturday (3-0 win at Kansas City) Hero: Jake Westbrook. The change in Westbrook's results in the last few starts has been stark and very welcome. Eight scoreless innings, allowing only four hits and three walks, is acceptable any time out. Westbrook still hits a bump here and there, which is not surprising for a guy that needs command and a good infield behind him, but he's not the weak link he was back in April. Goat: Colby Rasmus. 0-4 with two strikeouts. Even though the Cards didn't put up a lot of runs, most everyone did get a hit. Notes: Big home run by Matt Holliday to put the Cards on the board. Nice to see him back in the lineup, though it didn't last very long. A solid inning of work for Fernando Salas as well, as he locked down the save. Sunday (9-8 win in 10 at Kansas City) Hero: Yadier Molina. 4-5 with a double and a triple, plus an infield hit. Yadi can do it all! Goat: Miguel Batista. Perhaps you blame it somewhat on rust, as Batista hadn't pitched since last Friday, leaving us sadly lacking in poetry. Whatever the reason, he was terrible, turning a 7-3 game into 7-5 very quickly. While the rest of the bullpen didn't necessarily win any awards either, their foibles would have been immaterial without Batista's combustion. Notes: Lot of different points in this one. First off, Colby Rasmus walked five times in this affair, something that doesn't happen often. Rasmus did drive in the tie-breaking run with a walk in the 10th, which is one way to get an RBI. Good to see the patience from Rasmus and, honestly, it's something that Pujols might want to think about. More about AP in a moment, but in general, he seems to continue to chase bad pitches. Another nice game for Allen Craig, who went 2-2 with a home run before being pulled when the Cards had the big lead. Which leads to a discussion point, in my mind. I understand what Tony La Russa says, that the Cards are up by six when Craig comes out and if they can't hold that lead, they don't deserve to win. Very valid point and I agree to some extent. That said, you've gone into this series with 13 pitchers, which naturally leaves 12 on the offensive side. Nine of those 12, since you are in an AL park, are going to be in the lineup, leaving you a bench of three. You likely aren't going to use Gerald Laird (though TLR did wind up having to with Holliday leaving due to injury and probably regrets that now that Laird wound up breaking a bone, forcing a DL stint) so you have a regular bench of two guys. One of those guys, Ryan Theriot, is sick which is why he wasn't starting, so he's not that available. Do you really think this is the time to start resting players, especially a guy that could use the playing time? It'd make a bit more sense if it was Pete Kozma coming off the bench rather than Tyler Greene. It's not that Greene hasn't played, he's playing fairly regularly. It's not that Greene is a raw rookie, he's gotten some experience. There's no big pressing reason to get him into that game. Besides that, you've got two outfielders in Holliday and Lance Berkman that have been injured. Both were able to play in that game, which was surprising on the part of Berkman, but don't you hedge in case you need to take one of them out? Granted, Holliday was in the DH role which meant that Laird could stay in the game after pinch-running for him, but it just doesn't seem to be the best of roster management. And that's not even getting into the pitching staff. I didn't get to watch much of the game yesterday, but according to Bill during Gateway To Baseball Heaven last night, there was some surprise on Jaime Garcia's part that he was coming in after allowing a home run to Jeff Francoeur to start the sixth. Looking at Garcia's pitch history this season, it appears that La Russa is trying to baby Garcia a bit. Garcia has thrown 100 pitches four times this season. We're not talking 110-120 or anything, as the high for the year is 103. So right at 100 four times. Three of the four times, including yesterday, the next game out Garcia has thrown less than 85 pitches (82, 84, 84) with the exception being a 91-pitch outing against Houston. It's true he's struggled a little bit more in those games than others, but he still has a 3.13 ERA in those four contests. There seems little reason to have such a dramatic policy for him, especially in an outing yesterday where he still had a comfortable lead and had started the inning. Pulling him after one batter in the sixth seems strange--either don't let him start the fifth or let him continue. It'd be different if it was a 3-1 game or something after the home run. The other side of that coin is that, with 13 pitchers you have 8 relievers. You also have a starting staff that tends to go into the seventh or eighth on a fairly regular basis. The starters are good and they are able to be workhorses. That means, however, that the relievers do a lot of sitting around, especially those that aren't in a defined role right now. Let's look at the usage of the relievers from last Friday (5/13) to yesterday. An X means they pitched, a - that they didn't. Miguel Batista X--------X Mitchell Boggs --X------- Ryan Franklin -X-----X-- Trever Miller X-X----X-X Jason Motte XX-------X Fernando Salas X--XX-X-XX Eduardo Sanchez X--X-X---X And, of course, Brian Tallet has been injured and pitched yesterday for the first time since he was activated this weekend. Look at that, though. Boggs hasn't been used in a week--can that be good for him? Jason Motte went a lot time between appearances. For the post part, the bullpen is Miller (to face lefties), Salas and Sanchez. I'm not complaining about the use of those last two--I think they should get work. But is there really a demand for 13 pitchers? So when you have guys that aren't pitching, you have to be tempted to let them "get their work in" when the game is apparently in hand. The problem with that is that leads disappear quickly and it always seems to be the case that when you "disrespect the game", as it were, it comes back to bite you. Taking Garcia out just to get others in is a shame. After that weekend, though, there are a few issues outstanding. First is that Gerald Laird is out for a considerable amount of time, meaning that a backup must be summoned from Memphis. I don't think that it's a big surprise to anyone that Bryan Anderson is again passed over, with Tony Cruz being scheduled to come up and make his major league debut. While Anderson has had some success in the bigs, at least with the bat, he's not hitting much at Memphis now, making it much easier to justify the Cruz callup. Again, it's obvious that Anderson needs to be dealt to another organization to have much of a chance. The prevailing opinion seems to be that his bat won't be strong enough to offset his glove. Perhaps that's true, I don't know. He's hit in the past and there was at least some talk last year that he'd made strides defensively. However you come down on it, it's pretty obvious the organization doesn't think much of him. The problem now is that they've taken this one-time top prospect and, by being blatant about their thought process, eliminated any trade value for him whatsoever. If he's more than a throw-in for a middling player, I'd be shocked. The other issue I want to discuss (I know, this is running on, but that's what happens when I have five days worth of pent-up talk to get out) is the big guy at first base. If anything should have woken up Pujols's bat, it was a trip to Kansas City. He thrives there, whether it's because he likes the area or he's got a chip on his shoulder about not being drafted by them, I'm not sure, but he's usually good for a strong series against the Royals. This time, though, he managed four singles in 12 at-bats, drawing only one walk and none on a day when the team walked 13 times. His homerless streak now has reached 103 at-bats, the longest of his career by a significant margin. Bob wrote a great piece recently on how he wasn't worried about Albert just yet, citing his 2004 numbers. I've heard that some before, including on Gateway last Sunday when Kevin from Cards 'N Stuff and Mike from Stan Musial's Stance joined me, and there's some comfort in that. However, I took a look at the numbers last night and I wasn't as encouraged. First off, all the standard caveats that I throw out there when looking at numbers are in force (basically that I'm no sabermetrician and you shouldn't be surprised if there are big logical errors in my discussion), but after the same about of games in 2004, Pujols batting average was already on the way up to .294 and his OPS was over 1.000. He had 14 doubles and 14 home runs and, IIRC, had a 32/9 BB/K ratio, something of that nature. This year, Pujols is at .269 BA, .750 OPS, has 5 doubles and 7 HR and, most tellingly in my mind, has a 20/19 K/BB ratio. These numbers are easily the worst of his career and, being that he's seven years older than in 2004, gives me a lot of concern for concern. I'd like to look at AP's line-drive rate and ground-ball rate for the first 48 games of 2004 vs. the first 48 of 2011. Without being able to get to that, I'd guess that he's hitting a lot more ground balls this year and, as we know, grounders don't go over the wall and very rarely do they go for extra-bases. Can he turn it around? Sure. But every day that goes by when he doesn't makes it more and more likely that he won't. Of course, even with all these issues, the team is still leading the division by 2.5 games, one game shy of the best record in the National League, and ranked as the top NL team in at least one power ranking this week. Could have bigger problems, I guess! OK, that's plenty from me. Cards head out to the West Coast (more late night baseball, but for the last time this year) and take on the Padres. If there's another place you don't need 13 pitchers, it's Safeco, because odds are they are going to be low-scoring games that the starter can get deep into. The Cards will take 13 out there anyway.
Looks like our old friend Ryan Ludwick's done well against Lohse in the past in his small sample of work. This could be a test for Lohse, but his healthy season may be able to override many of these numbers.
 Filed Under: Heroes and Goats
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New YNOT: Kansas City YNOTPosted on May 20, 2011 at 7:33 AM
Sorry I didn't get this up yesterday. Hope you'll be able to participate before first pitch tonight! Look to get the Philly and Houston ones graded this weekend. Enjoy!Playing Pepper 2011: Kansas City RoyalsPosted on March 7, 2011 at 4:00 PM
Two years ago, I started a series I called Playing Pepper, where I asked questions of bloggers of each major league team about the season to come. Not only was that informative and entertaining, it led to the spawning of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance. With spring training coming up, it's time to get back into shape by again playing a little pepper. Kansas City Royals (67-95, 27 GB and fifth in the AL Central) It could be that the clouds are breaking. Kansas City is generally regarded to have the best minor league system in the game, with prospects sprouting up like the weeds in my yard. While there's been hope in the past, this time that hope looks to be legitimate and close at hand. How close, though? Will 2011 be much better than recent history? Or will these guys spend a lot of time seasoning, making for another long season on the other side of Missouri? Kansas City is an interesting situation when it comes to writers. A team that has been so weak has produced a number of great literary fans (Rob Neyer, Rany Jazayerli, Joe Posnanski) and that's carried over into the blogging world, as the Royals have one of the strongest chapters in the BBA. I was able to get a few of them to get involved in this year's Playing Pepper. Brian McGannon writes over at Royals Kingdom on a regular basis, which you can follow on Facebook and Twitter. Matt Kelsey does the Royals half of the state for our friends over at I70 Baseball. I70 is on Facebook and has a Twitter feed as well. Michael Engel takes care of covering Kansas City over at Fansided with Kings of Kauffman. He joined the site in March of 2010 and has been the lead writer and editor since May. He wanted to point out (which I'm not sure is wise on a Cardinals blog, but whatever) that he's been a fan since being introduced to baseball at five years old--during the 1985 World Series. Again, you can find him on both the Facebook and the Twitter. (You can really get your feeds loaded up with Royals if you want to!) Royalscentricity is penned by Josh Duggan, following the Royals with a bit of humor. He's got Facebook and Twitter covered as well. Ray W not only follows the Royals, but also where you can find them over the air at his blog, Royals On Radio Etc. He also has Facebook, but I think Ray hasn't gotten on the Twitter bandwagon just yet. Finally, Jeff Parker was one of the first members of the BBA before leaving late last year thinking that he was going to slow down the blogging thing. Once that bug has you, though, you can't let it loose. He's still going at Royally Speaking (no Facebook but Twitter) and I hope to get him back into the fold. Sit back, pour a drink and get comfortable. We're in for a long one after the jump! Continue ReadingWhile the Cat is away...Posted on July 30, 2010 at 1:07 AM
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 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. Filed Under: Cardinal Nation
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Mea CulpasPosted on June 28, 2010 at 11:48 AM
While taking my regular weekend sabbatical from blogging, I got to thinking about some of the posts that I've written this week and I realized I've strayed a little bit from what the general tone of this blog usually is.Back in my very first entry, before I swapped Wordpress for Blogs By Fans or started up the United Cardinal Bloggers, I wrote the following: "I root for the Cardinals and typically give them and management the benefit of the doubt. I'll criticize when necessary, but I'm not big on general bashing." While I don't think my posts have been bashing per se, I don't think I've been giving management enough of the benefit of the doubt. Look, the number of moves that have gone toward veterans and away from younger players is not necessarily a philosophy that most of us on the internet would espouse. When you see things like that, one straw on top of another, it becomes difficult to keep any optimism about the moves. Fact is, though, management has more information and insight on these things than we do, especially people like me sitting a state away and watching a few innings and reading some articles on a daily basis. There's a reason they think that Blake Hawksworth should start, that signing Jeff Suppan is a good idea. And, honestly, most often they are right, or at least are right for a while. Criticism is fine and good, but kudos are due when it pans out and, so far, most everything has at least not blown up in their faces. Let's get to the last four games before talking about the team in general. Apparently I should have never said anything about not having pitching woes with Adam Wainwright on the hill. I had no idea I was such a powerful jinx. Waino seems to be having a little trouble settling into games. For the year, his first 15 pitches have been hit at a .305 clip. His only run against Oakland was allowed in the first inning. Seattle got him for two in the first. In fact, you'd have to go back to his complete game shutout against the Brewers to find a game where he didn't allow at least one run--and usually more than one--in the first frame. He gave up three in Toronto and then allowed two more in his shortest outing since Sept. 13, 2008 against Pittsburgh. Not what you want to see out of Wainwright and not what you expect to see out of him. We'll see if he's able to dodge that first inning bullet against Arizona on Tuesday. Tough to find a Hero in a game where the team is shutout on five hits, so we'll give it to Fernando Salas. He threw two scoreless innings at a time when the pen needed a little extra boost and, though he did allow four baserunners in that time, he worked out of trouble. How is it not possible, though, that this juggernaut that we as fans thought we had going into the season has yet to sweep a three game series? They got the four gamer against the Braves back in April (part of their season-long five game winning streak) and took a short two-gamer against the Nationals, but that's it. When you go for the sweep with Wainwright on the mound and don't get it, you start to wonder just how snake bit you are. Filed Under: Arizona Diamondbacks
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Playing Pepper 2010: Kansas City RoyalsPosted on March 3, 2010 at 10:16 PM
Last year before the season began, I posed five questions to a blogger for each team, so as to get to know the rest of baseball. I focus so heavily on the Cardinals that sometimes the rest of MLB can pass me by. That went very well, so much so that it spawned not only a postseason edition but was part of the impetus for the formation of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.So this year, I've brought Playing Pepper back, with a little bit of a twist. Instead of five questions, I posed 10 questions, and this year every team got the same set. Plus, tapping into those BBA connections, I sent them to every blogger representing that team in the BBA. We'll try to do two a day in a general alphabetical order, but things may change depending on responses. Kansas City Royals 2009 Finish: 65-97, tied fourth in AL Central It's tough being a Royals fan. One of my best friends has followed Kansas City for as long as I can remember and it never ends well. There are those brief glimpses, such as 2003, but then things fall apart. The process starts again, but it never seems to end. That said, the Royals are well represented in the BBA, both in number and in quality. Sit back and enjoy as Nick from Broken Bat Single, Wally from Kings of Kauffman, Jeff from Royally Speaking and Brian from Royals Kingdom look forward to 2010 with their beloved squad. Continue ReadingWhere Have These Bats Been?Posted on June 22, 2009 at 9:47 AM
The On The Run people were probably pretty busy this weekend as the Cards really got serious in Kansas City.When the Cards wind up scoring 29 runs in the three game set, there are a lot of offensive heroes. Let's break down the series game by game. Friday, while you have to love what Khalil Greene did in his first game back, smacking two extra-base hits, I think I want to give the Hero tag to Ryan Ludwick for making Kansas City pay for walking Albert Pujols. Ludwick's grand slam may have helped lead to Pujols's big weekend, as it made KC gun-shy about walking him. Add on to the fact that Pujols drove in two runs anyway early in the game, Skip Schumaker went three for four, Colby Rasmus four for five and Rick Ankiel even went yard and suffice it to say it was a great Friday night in Kansas City. Finding a downside is pretty tough, but Chris Duncan did go 0-4 with two strikeouts and three left on base. That and Tyler Greene's hitless night could be overlooked, though, when you have everyone else clicking. Saturday wasn't quite as explosive, but still was more offense than we have been used to seeing out of the Cardinals. With Chris Carpenter on the mound, it's not like they needed a ton of it, anyway. Carpenter was, well, Carpenter, and he pretty much had to be until the Cards put up a couple in the sixth then tagged Royals relief pitching in the ninth. Pujols went yard again. He's been on such a tear since I hinted he was slumping. (You're welcome.) Khalil Greene went yard for the second straight day, helping provide a lot of that ninth-inning insurance. Yadier Molina and Ludwick had two hits and Ryan Franklin continued his All-Star year (he has to go, right? 17 saves and an ERA of 1.00?) with another save of longer than one inning. I love this quote from Royals pitcher Brian Bannister: "And when he gets in the batter's box, if you pray, then you start praying. And if you don't pray, you think about starting."About the only downside to that game, besides the inexplicable decision by Fox not to return to it after the rain delayed the start, instead leaving us in this area with Detroit and Milwaukee (which was nice, being that the Brewers lost and the Cards moved into first), was the fact that Rasmus went 0-4. Then we get to Sunday's game. Pujols. Need we say more? Actually, apparently we do, since now we know that Pujols called his shot on Sunday, a story that is making the rounds. Not that he would hit a home run next time up. Not that he'd hit it to center field, but that he'd hit the Royals HOF, which he did. In case you ever wondered just how special that guy is..... Perhaps Bernie Mikalsz is right, Pujols needs to be walked all the time. Just hope people don't actually start doing that. So, besides hitting a called-shot grand slam, he follows up with another solo shot after driving in two runs in the first inning. Not hard to find a hero in that one, though you have to also like Khalil going deep yet again and Duncan and Ankiel getting two hits. The downside was Adam Wainwright. I know he got the win. I know he got 8 strikeouts and didn't walk a batter. But eight hits and two homers? Five runs? Not exactly what we need to see out of the "co-ace". You have to think Pujols was also very happy to help Tony LaRussa win his 2500th game. Can you imagine that we'll ever see this again? TLR started managing so young and has never taken a full year off. The one year he was fired, he had another job within weeks. He left Oakland in an offseason and was in St. Louis by the next opening day. 30 straight years, basically, and having very good ball clubs in that span as well. He's 263 wins from second place. Figure that he gets another 43 wins (just a guess--I could easily see them winning more) by the end of this year, he sits 220 behind John McGraw. That's just three more solid years. Would he stick around that long, especially since he'd have the best player in baseball on his team? You'd like to think so. The key now is to see if this offensive renassiance can be carried into the new Citi Field. Todd Wellemeyer goes tonight, which is always a gamble. His numbers against the Mets don't inspire a lot of confidence either, as David Wright (.700) is probably looking forward to getting jump-started. The Mets counter with Tim Redding, who hasn't exactly been a Cardinal killer in his career either. Albert's got a home run off of him before and, the way he's swinging the bat now, Redding might want to be very concerned. Most of you know that last week, I had the chance to interview Ozzie Smith. In the same contact, the opportunity to interview Bruce Sutter was extended. Being that Sutter was gone from St. Louis before I really got started following the Cards (and wanting to spread the wealth, as it were), I put this out to the other UCB members. Mike at Stan Musial's Stance jumped at the chance, so you will be able to hear him talk to Sutter tomorrow morning on Blog Talk Radio at 10:30 Central. It should be a great listen! Also, a note of remembrance that today is the 7th anniversary of Darryl Kile's tragic passing. The anniversary of Jack Buck's passing last week slipped past me and, honestly, Kile's might have as well without a Facebook status reminder. So hard to believe that much time has passed. Filed Under: Heroes and Goats
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Finishing Up With DetroitPosted on June 19, 2009 at 8:48 AM
You take the good, you take the bad, you take 'em both and there you have a series win, a series win.What's up with Adam Wainwright getting so much run support lately? The Cards bust out 13 for him in Florida, then follow that up with 11 against the Tigers. There's a lot of possible Heroes in that game. Albert Pujols hit #23, taking over the major league lead in home runs. Chris Duncan had three hits, including a home run. However, like Jeff Gordon wrote, the game may have turned on Yadier Molina's first-inning at-bat. Molina battled and battled, then dropped the two-run single into left and the Cards were bursting Justin Verlander's invincible bubble. It was interesting, though, that later in the game Molina got a taste of his own medicine, getting picked off first by the catcher. On the flip side, it's tough to come up with a Goat, but I guess you go with Colby Rasmus. One hit in five at bats is OK, but he struck out twice and left four on, so in a game where everything was clicking, that's enough to slap the tag on you. So the Cardinal offense has shown that it can turn up on occasion and that it's a pretty fearsome thing when it is completely clicking. The problem is, it doesn't click on those cylinders very often. I don't know how many times this week I've looked up, seen Rick Ankiel at the plate with runners on, and assumed a strikeout, an assumption that was usually fulfilled in the next few moments. Wednesday's game, though, showed that even with reasonable offense, the Cards can win. Colby Rasmus and Yadier Molina both had three hits, Molina with a home run that started the scoring, Rasmus with two hits (including a triple) that drove in a run. It was nice to see a solid outing by Todd Wellemeyer as well, though as we noted on the UCB Radio Hour, Wellemeyer can do that, but you don't know anymore that he can do it consistently. On the down side, Kyle McClellan did give up a run in his over an inning of work, but it didn't tie the game, so I'll go with Joe Thurston, who went 0-4 and left two on base. There weren't a lot of negative performances to choose from, however. Thursday, the Cards had a chance for a sweep and to maybe quiet the local talk about not taking Rick Porcello a couple of years ago. However, neither of those happened as the Cards lost a game that, statistically, was over in the first and Porcello was able to work out of jams to put up a solid line. It's tough to know who to put the Goat tag on. Thurston's error in the first led aided in the four-run inning, a gap that the Cards have only come back from once this year. Given the way the team tried to battle back, though, I think you have to give the Goat tag to Jason Motte for serving up back-to-back home runs in the eighth, turning a one-run game into a three-run bulge. I'm guessing Fernando Rodney wouldn't have been in the game in the ninth with one run, but seeing the Cards load the bases really made you wish it was still 4-3. On the plus side, Duncan had an RBI, Molina had two hits, but let's go with Tyler Greene, who had a double among his two hits and drove in a run. The offense wasn't spectacular last night, but it was respectable. You also have to credit Joel Pineiro for pitching a very good game after the first inning, a first that wasn't completely his fault. The Cardinals made some moves yesterday. One was pretty expected, bringing Khalil Greene back. However, the flip side of that was not Blake Hawksworth going down, which was rumored earlier in the week, but PJ Walters. Nice to see Hawksworth getting a chance to hang around. The other side of this was sending down Nick Stavinoha and bringing back up Josh Kinney, because we can't bear to be without 13 pitchers nowadays. Kinney seems to have made strides in Memphis, so I look forward to seeing him back here in the bigs. Greene is going to cause a lot of debate until he proves he's mentally healthy and is back to hitting. It seems like a very quick turnaround for someone with his mental condition, though it may be that something flipped a switch for him or there was some medication he could take that would help ease his anxiety. I expect he'll be starting tonight vs. Kansas City so we'll start seeing whether this is the case. The Cards head across state this weekend for a rematch with the Royals. Again, the Cardinals miss Zach Greinke, though that's not quite the relief that it was last time around. The series opens with Kyle Davies, who did a solid job against the Cardinals in the last series, allowing only two runs in six innings. However, that was during that extremely good stretch of pitching and so the Cardinals won that game 5-0. None of the Cardinals have seen him all that often, though there are some good numbers in there. The Cardinals counter with Brad Thompson. I've been pretty vocal that I'm not a huge Thompson fan anymore, but he's definitely done the job since being pressed into service. His 2.93 June ERA, though, is really weighed down by the zero earned in six innings in his last start. Whether that is the trend now that he's getting used to the rotation or a fluke still remains to be seen. He's really going to have to watch Mark Teahen, but the rest of the Royals haven't been that tough on him. Should be an interesting series. There have been some TV changes to the schedule which affect this series. Saturday's game was planned for FSMW, but has been picked up as a Fox Game of the Week. Other changes include the July 23 makeup game against the Nationals will be on FSMW, the August 1 game against Houston has been taken off the Fox Game of the Week schedule, given to FSMW, and has a time change to 6:15. Finally, the Saturday, October 3 game (the next to last game of the year) has moved from FSMW to KSDK. Enjoy the weekend!
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 HeroesLance Berkman (24) Albert Pujols (19) Matt Holliday (15) Chris Carpenter (10) Kyle Lohse (9) Yadier Molina (9) Ryan Theriot (8) David Freese (7) Jaime Garcia (7) Jon Jay (7) Jake Westbrook (6) Allen Craig (5) Kyle McClellan (5) Colby Rasmus (5) Edwin Jackson (4) Skip Schumaker (4) Daniel Descalso (3) Rafael Furcal (2) Gerald Laird (2) Nick Punto (2) Marc Rzepczynski (2) Fernando Salas (2) Mitchell Boggs (1) Daniel Descalso (1) Lance Lynn (1) 2010 Top Heroes: Matt Holliday and Albert Pujols (24) 2009 Top Hero: Albert Pujols (28) 2008 Top Hero: Albert Pujols (25) GoatsRyan Theriot (12) Albert Pujols (11) Jake Westbrook (10) David Freese (8) Ryan Franklin (7) Jaime Garcia (7) Fernando Salas (7) Kyle Lohse (6) Kyle McClellan (6) Colby Rasmus (6) Skip Schumaker (6) Miguel Batista (5) Chris Carpenter (5) Daniel Descalso (5) Matt Holliday (5) Jon Jay (5) Jason Motte (5) Allen Craig (4) Rafael Furcal (4) Tyler Greene (4) Yadier Molina (4) Lance Berkman (3) Mitchell Boggs (3) Gerald Laird (3) Edwin Jackson (2) Trever Miller (2) Corey Patterson (2) Marc Rzepczynski (2) Matt Carpenter (1) Maikel Cleto (1) Tony Cruz (1) Octavio Dotel (1) Mark Hamilton (1) Lance Lynn (1) Nick Punto (1) Arthur Rhodes (1) Eduardo Sanchez (1) Raul Valdes (1) PJ Walters (1) 2010 Top Goat: Brendan Ryan (14) 2009 Top Goats: Rick Ankiel and Todd Wellemeyer (13) 2008 Top Goat: Troy Glaus (13) Cardinal Nation Approval Ratings (March 2011)Adam Wainwright 94.7% (down 0.9%) Matt Holliday 91.1% (up 6.6%) Albert Pujols 90.4% (down 8.3%) Dave Duncan 87.9% (up 0.9%) Derrick Goold 87.8% Chris Carpenter 86.9% (down 6.7%) Matthew Leach 85.5% Mike Shannon 84.9% (down 4.6%) John Rooney 84.3% (up 8.1%) Yadier Molina 83.7% (down 8.3%) Colby Rasmus 81.8% (up 5.0%) Pop Warner 76.7% Jim Hayes 76.1% John Mozeliak 74.1% (down 12.0%) Ryan Franklin 72.8% (up 3.1%) Bill Dewitt 71.0% (down 12.0%) Tony La Russa 70.8% (down 10.2%) BJ Rains 70.4% Ricky Horton 69.1% John Vuch 68.9% Jeff Luhnow 66.4% Skip Schumaker 64.1% (down 17.0%) Al Hrabosky 63.2% (up 19.0%) Mark McGwire 62.5% (down 10.7%) Dan Lozano 58.7% Joe Strauss 57.5% Kyle Lohse 55.1% (down 11.7%) 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 |
