A Cruel Tease

After two and a half innings last night, all looked right with the world.

Runners were reaching base.  Colby Rasmus had actually gotten a hit in the cleanup slot (and I was pretty close with that lineup yesterday, wasn't I?).  Chris Duncan had driven in a run.  Rick Ankiel had driven a ball off the wall, plating two runners though he was thrown out looking for a triple.

Three run lead.  Chris Carpenter on the mound.  Things were looking up.  The losing streak was over and the offense was on its way.  Right?

Not so much.  Carpenter wasn't quite Carpenter, as he gave back two of those runs immediately, then the third a couple of innings later.  The offense continued to struggle, though they did get nine hits in the game.  However, no more runs were forthcoming, leading up to the Goat Play of the Game, Jason Motte's gopherball pitch to Jeremy Hermida.

Still, even with the loss, it was good to see some offense for once.  I mean, the Cards don't put together three run innings that often.  As noted in the Post-Dispatch story, it was only the 4th time in 228 innings they'd been able to do that.  If you pull up the Baseball Reference link, you can see that only 4.8% of the time do they score three or more runs in an inning and just over 70% of the time, they don't score at all.  (Which, actually, isn't out of line with their opponents, who score three 5.3% of the time and don't score 73.8%.)

Of course, the other big news of yesterday was the first-year player draft.  The Cardinals surprised some people by going with Shelby Miller, a high-ceiling high school pitcher from Texas.  He may cost the Cards quite a bit of money, leading Jeff Luhnow to state that it's no slam dunk that it'll get done, though Miller himself seems very excited and ready to go (and, honestly, probably driving his agents crazy knocking down some of their leverage!)

The Cardinals took a catcher and a pitcher, or possibly two pitchers depending on how things go, with their next two picks.  You can get the definitive recap over at Future Redbirds and I understand they'll be liveblogging the draft today, so be sure to check that out.

In news that slipped under the radar a bit, Kyle Lohse apparently will be out longer than some of us anticipated, meaning that Brad Thompson is going to get a lot more starts. The thought is that Thompson will be able to start stretching out and be more effective with regular time.  My fear is that part of what has worked for him so far has been the lack of exposure, something that will catch up with him the more he pitches.  We'll find out soon, I guess.

Tonight, the Cards again try to stop the losing streak with Adam Wainwright on the hill.  If he doesn't do it, it could be a long week.  Wainwright has good numbers against the current Marlins squad and nobody has yet taken him deep.  Chris Volstad goes for the Marlins and has only seen the Cards once, but they are four for ten against him.

Don't forget that tonight, 9:30 Central (so after the game, most likely) is the UCB Radio Hour.  Call in with your comments or questions at 646-929-1758!


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