Blogs By FansC70 At The Bat
Sponsor


Cardinals_WideSkyscraper.jpg

Baseball Schedule is your best source for the latest St Louis Cardinals Schedule information as well as keeping up with division rivals including Cubs Schedule, Reds Schedule, Brewers Schedule and Astros Schedule.

Bet on the Cardinals with Sports Interaction's MLB betting lines


Slots Galore Casino Tournaments

Get your tickets from Bubba! Cheap St. Louis Cardinals Tickets and more, including tickets for the next MLB All-Star Game. Bubba's got Boston Red Sox Tickets and New York Yankees Tickets

Authentic, large selection of Cardinals memorabilia, guaranteed and certified.

Subscribe
RSS Feed

Archives

Players

Categories


Alliance tickets has an extensive inventory of St. Louis Cardinals Tickets , Colorado Rockies Tickets, San Francisco Giants Tickets and Seattle MarinersTickets.

With all of the St Louis tickets out there, Cardinals tickets and Rams tickets make for great presents. GoTickets.com can fill all of your sports tickets needs, just check out our testimonials!

He's Back!

Posted on June 6, 2011 at 9:28 AM
Filed Under: Chicago Cubs | Heroes and Goats | St. Louis Cardinals
Apparently the Cardinals finally made it to the return desk this weekend, turning in whatever that was that was pretending to be Albert Pujols here in 2011 and getting the real deal in return.  Let's recap the games, then get into a little more discussion about the big guy.

Friday (6-1 win)
Hero: Jaime Garcia.  Apparently he wasn't all that damaged by being beat up in Colorado.  Garcia showed that he's definitely got an ace-like makeup by giving up just one run in eight innings and doing so in efficient fashion, throwing less than 100 pitches.  

Goat: Skip Schumaker. Tony La Russa mentioned recently that it probably wasn't fair to Skip that they activated him immediately at the end of his DL stint, but the team "needed him".  I'm trying to figure out what they needed.  They had a lot of players that could play second.  Skip's defense has never been jaw-dropping.  So if he can't hit, and right now for whatever reason (timing being one) he can't, exactly how is he helping the team?

Notes: Two hit day by Lance Berkman, quieting some injury fears for a bit.  His home run in the first gave Garcia all the padding he would need.  Ryan Theriot and Yadier Molina continue to hit, with both getting two knocks in this game.  Good to see a home run by Albert Pujols.  No idea that was just the start of a great weekend.  

Saturday (5-4 win in 14)
Hero: Albert Pujols.  Not just for the game-winning home run, which was on a pretty good pitch, enough of one that you saw Jeff Samardzija mouthing "No (bleeping) way" afterwards, but more for the fact that he had two home runs and, importantly, a roped double that brought the Cards to within one.  So often in those spots recently he'd have grounded out, possibly into a double play.  Instead, he hit it hard and got it up a bit, splitting the outfielders.  Ah, yes, this is the Albert we remember!

Goat: Colby Rasmus.  Three outs in six pitches says all you need to know about this game, plus there was some disagreement about how he chased down a double by Geovanny Soto.  Perhaps he was worn out, which would be understandable especially given the heat in St. Louis the last few days.  Whatever the reason, he didn't look good in this one.

Notes: Berkman did a good job of getting the tying run in.  He'd had a rough time with the lefties this year, but he did what had to be done against Sean Marshall and tied it up, which was great to see.  The bullpen was outstanding, allowing only one base runner in seven innings.  Miguel Batista and Eduardo Sanchez especially, as they went multiple innings.  Kyle Lohse hit a roadblock in the sixth, something that could be of concern as we get deeper into the season and the weather continues to be warm, and Jason Motte did a good job of getting him out of it.  Plus, the rookie Matt Carpenter got his first hit, a double in the ninth that looked like it might give the Cards a chance to win it in regulation.

Sunday (3-2 win in 10)
Hero: Ryan Theriot. We know about Albert's game-winner, but he doesn't get a chance to do that if it wasn't for Theriot picking a real good time to extend his hitting streak.  Tying a game with two outs in the ninth is always exciting, plus it was good enough to get Carlos Zambrano hollering.  Gotta love it when that happens.

Goat: Matt Carpenter. Only 0-fer on the day.  It's tough to give it to someone like Carpenter who is still figuring it out at the big league level, but sometimes the Goat tag just isn't kind or all that fair.

Notes: Albert is El Hombre, no matter what he says.  And it's great to see him having fun on the field, which we've not see all that often this year.  Chris Carpenter, while he again didn't get the win, had a classic Carpenter outing.  Good stuff, kept the Cubs off the board, struck out six and was able to get through the ninth with what was a bit of an elevated pitch count (118) but not a ridiculous one for a pitcher of his stature and experience.  

All in all, it was a spectacular weekend.  Anytime you beat the Cubs it's great, but doing it in dramatic fashion and with the big man getting going just made for an even sweeter experience.

Listening to the Fox Sports Midwest crew after one of the games, I believe it was yesterday's, Rick Horton and the group tended to give a lot of credence to the whole notion that Albert's surge had a lot to do with the weather warming up.  While that might factor in a little bit, I'm not buying that as the reason for the resurgence.  

It wasn't that Pujols was hitting a lot of balls to the wall.  If he had, the angst around him would have been a lot less because eventually, yes, those balls are going to go out.  It was more that he was hitting the ground balls, not hitting line drives, not getting balls in the air.  That's why that double on Saturday may have been more telling than either of the home runs. It was a ball into the gap instead of a ball to the shortstop, and that foretells a lot better summer for Number 5.

Interesting article this weekend about how the Cards gambled and lost on Matt Holliday.  While we as fans sitting at home seem to think it was pretty much of a slam dunk to go ahead and put him on the DL early on, you can understand why the club did what it did after reading through their reasoning.  It also sounds like Holliday was pretty adamant about staying off the DL, which likely played a strong role in the whole situation as well.

I was floored when I looked it up last night, but the Cards have the most wins in baseball and trail only the Phillies in winning percentage, and that's by .003.  For this team to do that with all the injuries and shortcomings that they've had, well, it pretty much puts to rest that whole "small margin of error" talk that I can't ranting about before the season started.  Shows what I know, but you've probably already figured that out if you read often!

Off day today, so we'll be back tomorrow with a look at the starting pitchers for the beginning of the Houston series and an announcement about upcoming posts.  Stay tuned!


Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta


Leave a comment




Leave a comment




Cardinals_MediumRectangle.jpg

UCB_11_trans_dark_sm.png

Search



BallHyped Best Sports Blogs Book
This blog was featured in the Best Sports Blogs of 2010 Book!
• Pick up the limited print edition
• Free Best Sports Blogs ebook 


United Cardinal Bloggers

FRIENDS OF THE UCB


Download the iPhone or Android UCB app by clicking on the nice orange picture.
Open in Mobile App 

And check out the UCB Network over at LockerDome!
lockerdome-share_63x63.png
  



Other Cardinal Blogs

Recommended Cardinal Forum

Other Cardinal Sites

General Baseball Blogs/Sites



Heroes
Matt Holliday (5)
Matt Carpenter (4)
Rafael Furcal (4)
Carlos Beltran (3)
Jaime Garcia (3)
Jon Jay (3)
Kyle Lohse (3)
Lance Lynn (3)
Yadier Molina (3)
David Freese (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)
Jason Motte (3)
Marc Rzepczynski (3)
Adam Wainwright (3)
Rafael Furcal (2)
Tyler Greene (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%


    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