Posted on April 7, 2011 at 7:27 AM
Filed Under:
Heroes and Goats
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Pittsburgh Pirates
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St. Louis Cardinals
At least Tony La Russa is in mid-season form.
The postgame press conference ended with
TLR snapping at the media and abruptly leaving, moves contrary to his stated policy of more amiable relations with the press. The thrust of La Russa's tirade was that it is early, and surely it is. As we discussed last night on the UCB Radio Hour, six games does not a season make. You only have to look to Boston to see that being the case.
That said, in some ways this seems like Week 27 of the 2010 season. If the Cards had lost games 6-4 or 7-5, maybe the early thing would feel more accurate. Instead, an offense that was supposed to have been boosted and been more consistent is having games like they did last year, where the pitcher of the day felt they needed to pitch a shutout to win, and even that wasn't a guarantee.
It was pointed out on the Fox Sports MW broadcast yesterday that the Cardinals have scored 14 runs in six games....and hit into 10 double plays. Out of the nine National Leaguers that have grounded into more than one double play, the Cardinals have two of them. Obviously,
Albert Pujols leads the league with four after his opening day, but
Skip Schumaker also has a couple. The Cards
lead the majors in double plays grounded into, two more than Minnesota and four more than the closest National League team, Milwaukee.
Wednesday, it was more of the same. Hero of the game
Chris Carpenter pitched a very good ballgame, though his pitch count ran up and he wasn't able to go as deep as most fans would have liked. Still, six innings, two runs (one earned) and six strikeouts isn't a bad days work. For the most part, the bullpen held, though
Jason Motte allowed an insurance run to the Pirates in the ninth, something that really came back to haunt the Cards when they finally scored in the bottom of the inning. Just like last year's squad, no matter how inept they seemed early in the game, they always seemed to wake up enough late to get the tying or winning run to the plate.
The problem wasn't entirely hitting, either. Almost everyone in the middle of the lineup had a hit. The problem was, they couldn't string those hits together or hit with any authority until late in the game. Even in the ninth, it took a two-out double from
Yadier Molina to get the run in, as it looked for a while that the leadoff double by
Lance Berkman was going to be wasted.
Ryan Theriot went 0-3 in the leadoff slot, though he did draw a walk, and
Colby Rasmus went 0-4 in the second slot. Hard to get anything going when those two spots are hitless. I'll give Theriot the Goat since I'm not big on o-fers in the leadoff slot.
(On a side note, it seems that already Berkman is the
go-to guy to talk about a game. There doesn't seem to be a game story where he's not quoted and he usually is going into depth about what's going on or at least discussing it with the reporter instead of spouting off cliches. Don't know if that helps team chemistry or not, but it definitely adds to reading about the game.)
So, do we panic yet? Of course not. Cincinnati is off to a perfect start and the Cards are already four games back, but while we're looking at last year, let's remember: the Cardinals had a very strong April last season and led the division by five games early on. Still a lot of baseball to be played, though not today as the Cards wing their way to San Francisco. We'll look at Friday's pitching matchup tomorrow.
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1 Comments
Oh no, I didn't look at the standings very carefully -- the Cards are four games back already?? Yikes!
But, yes, too soon to panic. Some consistent hitting that can actually be productive would make me feel a lot better, though.