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A Late-Night ExtravaganzaPosted on May 24, 2011 at 12:24 PM Filed Under: Heroes and Goats | San Diego Padres | St. Louis Cardinals You can't beat fun at the old ballpark, even when that fun keeps you up too late and makes you yawn through the morning the next day. It seems like perhaps Albert Pujols figured out where his bats were. He was only 1-4, but as I mentioned yesterday, it's more about how he's making his outs. Last night, there weren't any weak ground balls. There were two fly balls that were deep enough to leave a couple of park (to go along with a borderline strikeout). That kind of game gives me more confidence about him taking off on a run. It does seem like the man reads his press clippings at times, as I've noted before, and sometimes likes to prove those writers wrong. Even with the turning point (hopefully) in Pujols's season, the Hero tag has to go to Kyle Lohse. Another remarkable outing, only marred by a misplaced pitch to Chase Headley, which led to the Padres' run. You can keep up with Lohse's remarkable season at On The Outside Corner, and while many of us thought Lohse would be better this year, Bob's really been the driver of his fan club. (Lots of fan clubs this year!) Glad to see Lohse's resurgence and look forward to seeing how he does in Colorado this weekend. Daniel Descalso also came up big with the game-winning single in the eighth along with a solid double earlier in the contest. Descalso drove in Skip Schumaker, who had a nice game coming back off the DL with a single and a couple of good defensive plays. More on his activation in a bit. The highlight of the game, though, may have been this awesome catch by Colby Rasmus to rob Ryan Ludwick of a home run. If the Pads get on the board there, does it change the way the game plays out? I don't think it would have made a huge impact, but you never know how things could change when you trail rather than when you are tied. Our Goat for last night was Yadier Molina, who went 0-4 with a double play. Molina's been on such a tear that you have to figure he'll slip a little soon, just due to the law of averages. OK, so yesterday's big news, besides the swap of catchers that we talked about yesterday morning, was that Schumaker was activated and, instead of Pete Kozma being sent down, it was Mitchell Boggs.making the trip down to Memphis, which was met on Twitter with a collective, "Huh?" Not only was Boggs being demoted, they are putting him in the starting rotation. To some degree, because of the way the roster has been constructed, the move was just about inevitable. They didn't need to go with 13 pitchers (which, as I've argued, they didn't need to do this weekend either, so it was a hole of their own digging) so making a hitter for pitcher swap makes sense. You know that Miguel Batista and Ryan Franklin, being players that management still believes in (and, in the case of Franklin, are still paying well) aren't going to be cut. That just leaves a pitcher with options and it wasn't going to be Fernando Salas or Eduardo Sanchez. Putting Boggs in the rotation, though, still strikes me as a strange thing. Sure, you know when he's going to pitch and he can pitch a bit longer, but this is the minor leagues. They want to win, but if you say Boggs has to pitch two innings every third day, they'll put him in there then. He's not going to need four pitches as a reliever, so have him come in with the express purpose of throwing changeups or off-speed stuff. I'm not sold on the fact that you can bounce a guy from starter to reliever and back and forth without worry. I assume that Kozma's here until Nick Punto gets healthy or the 10 days on Mark Hamilton are done and he's eligible to return. Right now, it seems like we have the complete collection of middling middle infielders with potential scrappiness abilities, something that has to have Matt Sebek in heaven. That quad injury for Matt Holliday didn't clear up overnight and it sounds like he'll probably be out the entire San Diego series. Lance Berkman played left yesterday and, well, maybe Jon Jay should flip with him. I'm still a proud member of the LB Fan Club, but he didn't look graceful at all in left last night, even more than normal. Speaking of last night, I was able to make my I70 Baseball podcast debut as part of a roundtable of notable Cardinal bloggers. Lots of good topics including Jaime Garcia, Berkman, and the NL Central standings, so check it out if you weren't able to listen live. Cardinals are donating $25,000 to Convoy of Hope to help those in Joplin, which is desperately needed there. Seeing that devastation and imagining how long it will take to rebuild is a heart wrenching thing. We're glad that some of our UCB members in that area were safe and sound, though I understand that Kevin from Cards 'N Stuff lost his place of business. Another late one tonight as we get Game 2 in this series. At least Wednesday's starts at a more reasonable hour. Here's how the pitchers stack up. First, Kyle McClellan vs. San Diego:
Nothing you can really take out of that. 14 total plate appearances is almost by definition a small sample size. See our old friend Ludwick took him yard after being traded to San Diego last year.
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 HeroesMatt Holliday (5) Matt Carpenter (4) Rafael Furcal (4) Carlos Beltran (3) Jon Jay (3) Kyle Lohse (3) Lance Lynn (3) Yadier Molina (3) David Freese (2) Jaime Garcia (2) Adam Wainwright (2) Lance Berkman (1) Allen Craig (1) Shane Robinson (1) Fernando Salas (1) Jake Westbrook (1) 2011 Top Hero: Lance Berkman (24) 2010 Top Heroes: Matt Holliday and Albert Pujols (24) 2009 Top Hero: Albert Pujols (28) 2008 Top Hero: Albert Pujols (25) GoatsMatt Holliday (4) Carlos Beltran (3) David Freese (3) Jaime Garcia (3) Marc Rzepczynski (3) Adam Wainwright (3) Rafael Furcal (2) Tyler Greene (2) Jason Motte (2) J.C. Romero (2) Fernando Salas (2) Mitchell Boggs (1) Matt Carpenter (1) Tony Cruz (1) Daniel Descalso (1) Jon Jay (1) Erik Komatsu (1) Kyle Lohse (1) Victor Marte (1) Eduardo Sanchez (1) Jake Westbrook (1) 2011 Top Goat: Ryan Theriot (12) 2010 Top Goat: Brendan Ryan (14) 2009 Top Goats: Rick Ankiel and Todd Wellemeyer (13) 2008 Top Goat: Troy Glaus (13) 2012 Happy FlightsHappy Flights: 7 Happy Flight Opportunities: 12 Happy Flight %: 58% Through 5/20 Cardinal Nation Approval Ratings (March 2012)Adam Wainwright 91.9% (down 2.8%) Chris Carpenter 90.1% (up 3.2%) Lance Berkman 88.6% Tony La Russa 88.2% (up 17.4%) Yadier Molina 87.4% (up 3.7%) Matt Holliday 87.3% (down 3.8%) David Freese 85.5% John Mozeliak 85.4% (up 13.3%) Mike Shannon 85.3% (up 0.4%) Jose Oquendo 84.7% Derrick Goold 82.8% (down 5.0%) Mark McGwire 82.6% (up 20.1%) John Rooney 81.5% (down 2.8%) Mike Matheny 81.1% Bill DeWitt 79.8% (up 8.8%) United Cardinal Bloggers 78.9% Skip Schumaker 73.3% (up 9.2%) Jim Hayes 71.9% (down 4.2%) Jon Jay 71.1% B.J. Rains 69.5% (down 0.9%) Kyle Lohse 68.9% (up 13.8%) Dan McLaughlin 68.0% Joe Strauss 67.7% (up 10.2%) Ricky Horton 67.5% (down 1.6%) Al Hrabosky 66.4% (up 3.2%) Albert Pujols 54.9% (down 45.5%) Colby Rasmus 46.5% (down 35.3%) 2011 Dave Duncan 87.9% (up 0.9%) Matthew Leach 85.5% Pop Warner 76.7% Ryan Franklin 72.8% (up 3.1%) John Vuch 68.9% Jeff Luhnow 66.4% Dan Lozano 58.7% 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 |
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