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Early Season Blues

Posted on April 5, 2011 at 9:33 AM
Filed Under: Heroes and Goats | Pittsburgh Pirates | St. Louis Cardinals
You wait all winter for spring training.  Once spring training gets here, you start getting anxious for the regular season, looking forward to good baseball and, as Cardinal fans, getting some wins.  So far, save for Sunday that wait continues.  If this keeps up, the Cards are going to take us seriously when we said they had to host us every night to win.

No luck against Pittsburgh last night in shaking those vestiges of 2010.  While there's a lot of talk about how much better Charlie Morton has looked lately, it was still a pitcher the Cardinals have been able to hit before.  Again, they had their opportunities to break open a game, though maybe not as many as they had against San Diego.  It all boiled down to a 4-3 loss with the smallest-ever crowd in the history of the new place watching.

Not so fun note: The Cardinals have scored 11 runs this season.  The Padres scored 11 against them on Saturday.  Granted, Matt Holliday is out right now, but that offensive surge we were hoping for seems to be short-circuited at the moment.  It's often said that the offense goes as Albert Pujols goes, and right now he's not going.  If he could start heating up, things would probably look a little brighter.

Kyle Lohse made some mistakes, but that's to be expected.  Save for the one inning, he pitched a very solid game, limiting Pittsburgh's chances.  He just got a couple of pitches up and some of the young talent of the Pirates took advantage of it.    Overall, he pitched a good game--only walked one, struck out five and looked like what you'd expect out of a middle of the rotation starter.

Hero: Lance Berkman.  He had a hit, walked twice, scored a run and drove in a run.  Granted, he did have a bit of a misplay in the outfield, but it didn't seem to cost the Cardinals much.  (Also, you have to be careful when you watch the game with the Twitterati.  I made one comment about Berkman and before you know it I'm a founding member of the Lance Berkman Fan Club.  I just hope I don't have to bring the food to the next meeting.)

Skip Schumaker was in the running with his two hits and Allen Craig drove in a run and got a hit, just not at the same time.

Goat: David Freese, 0-4 with two strikeouts.  Erika isn't going to like that, but it was a very rough night for the third baseman.  Even that line, as bad as it is, doesn't completely tell the whole story because while he knocked in the first run, it was on a double play grounder with first and third and nobody out.  A hit there could have snowballed into a big inning.  Also deserving mention: Yadier Molina with his 0-4, one strikeout performance.

In better news, Jaime Garcia won the co-player of the week award.  Sadly, he had to share it with a Cub but it was still a nice honor, even if it was for an abbreviated week.  Hopefully he'll get to have his own on a full one very soon!

Matt Holliday doesn't want to go on the DL, and so far looks like he may not.  At the gathering on Sunday, John Mozeliak said he thought the decision on Holliday would be made in the next 48 hours.  That clock is just about run out, so it would seem to me that, barring any sort of setback, the team will limp along a day or so and then get him into the lineup out in San Francisco.  That's the difference about his job and my job.  If I had an appendectomy, I'm milking it for as much time off as possible, especially this time of year with some afternoon baseball.

Let's look at this evening's matchup.  First off, Kyle McClellan, making his first start in the big leagues, against the Pirates.

PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS IBB HBP
Ronny Cedeno 8 7 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 .286 .375 .429 .804 0 1
Ryan Doumit 5 4 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 .750 .800 .750 1.550 0 0
Andrew McCutchen 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 .000 .667 .000 .667 0 0
Steven Pearce 3 2 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 .000 .333 .000 .333 0 0
Matt Diaz 2 2 1 0 0 0 2 0 1 .500 .500 .500 1.000 0 0
Jason Jaramillo 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 .000 .500 .000 .500 0 0
Pedro Alvarez 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0
John Bowker 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Garrett Jones 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Lyle Overbay 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Jose Tabata 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Neil Walker 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Total 29 23 6 1 0 0 3 5 4 .261 .414 .304 .718 0 1
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/5/2011.

Not just a ton of success for Pittsburgh against McClellan, but it's such a different thing tonight with him starting that it's hard to draw any conclusions.  It could be he'll continue this level of pitching, it could be they'll start figuring him out the second and third time around.  McClellan was much better in the spring about going deeper into games and not getting beat around than I thought, so hopefully he can carry that into the regular season.

Let's see what James McDonald has done against the Redbirds.

PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS IBB HBP
Matt Holliday 4 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Colby Rasmus 4 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 2 .000 .250 .000 .250 1 0
Allen Craig 3 3 2 1 0 1 1 0 0 .667 .667 2.000 2.667 0 0
Daniel Descalso 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Jon Jay 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Yadier Molina 3 2 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 .500 .667 1.000 1.667 0 0
Albert Pujols 3 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .500 .667 .500 1.167 0 1
Tyler Greene 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .500 .500 .500 1.000 0 0
Ryan Theriot 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.000 1.000 1.000 2.000 0 0
Total 26 23 6 2 0 1 1 2 4 .261 .346 .478 .824 1 1
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/5/2011.

There's not a huge sample size for anyone here, as I believe they have only faced him once, late in the year last year when any bad team or mediocre pitcher could beat them.  McDonald is being touted as better-than-average, though, so we'll see if they are able to do anything with him even though they've not seen him much before.

Before leaving, I wanted to mention the Sign Pujols organization.  What they are doing is selling signs for you to show your support for the return of Mr. Pujols and donating the profits to the Pujols Family Foundation.  That last little twist sets it apart from a lot of fan campaigns and makes getting a sign worth it, I think.  So check that out and see what you think.

Let's see if the 2011 Cardinals can show up tonight.  I'd like to meet them instead of hanging out with the 2010 version.


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Heroes
Matt 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)

Goats
Matt 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 Flights
Happy 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%


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