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!

Life Without Albert

Posted on June 21, 2011 at 9:41 AM
Filed Under: Philadelphia Phillies | St. Louis Cardinals
Not surprisingly, any sort of Cardinal talk still is squarely focused on the Albert Pujols injury.  Most everyone is giving their opinion--you read mine yesterday and we'll talk more about it here.  All around the UCB, you'll find reasonable and logical reactions to the news that Pujols will be out for six weeks almost at a minimum, since he'll be in a soft cast for four of those.

There are some concerns about long-term issues, of course.  Bernie Miklasz notes how players like Derrek Lee and Cliff Floyd didn't seem to be the same after an injury like this.  However, it was noted on Twitter yesterday that if you take out Lee's one breakout season (which is a major outlier), he averaged 28 home runs before the injury and 24 after, which was not as jarring as you might think.  As for Floyd, his injury was much more severe.  I think we've seen more times where sprains in that area (for example, Mark DeRosa) are more limiting than a clean break.

I was briefly listening to ESPN Radio last night and the host, who was a guest host on the Brian Kenny show and I don't know who it was, said two things--one, that this likely wouldn't affect his contract if he came back hitting home runs in August and September and two, that the Cardinals were done, that they couldn't make the playoffs.

He has a point on the former, though I do think that the combination of the early slump and now this injury will have a few teams rethinking just how much they want to give him a historic contract.  The latter, though, is complete lunacy.

It's pretty obvious that this team isn't going to be completely sunk by this injury.  I mean, they just lost seven in a row, with Pujols playing, and didn't fall out of the race.  While the Brewers and the Reds are good teams, they aren't necessarily the Red Sox and Yankees.  They have their own issues and flaws.

The Cardinals don't have to just hang their hats on "those guys aren't perfect either", though.  There's still a remarkable bit of punch in this lineup.  This team was winning when Pujols was hitting .230 and grounding into a ton of double plays.  As I said yesterday, it's all on the pitching staff.  They do their job, this team will win.  If not, they won't.

So here's my guarantee: if the team ERA while Pujols is out is 4.25 or less, the team won't be more than three games out when he come back.

If that happens, I'll have a post titled "I Was Wrong" and eat as much crow as Bill Ivie has over the whole Kyle Lohse thing.  However, I don't expect to have to do it.  This team has battled injuries all year--they've now used the DL more times in 2011 than they did in the whole 2010 season--and they've survived.  Some parts are going to get healthy and they are going to contribute.  I expect the team will keep mixing and matching with the bullpen arms.  We'll see what they do to stay afloat.  Six weeks from today is my birthday--be nice if Albert returned for my present to a team still in first.

Mark Hamilton will be coming up before tonight's game.  Interestingly, John Mozeliak said that the long-term plan might not necessarily be that Lance Berkman plays first the entire time.  The way Berkman talks, the outfield has been better on his knees and the Cards may want to make sure they don't lose him as well.  He'll play more first, but he probably won't be completely a first baseman.

The injury also has apparently changed some of the team's trade deadline thinking.  They are more open to the possibility that they need to go get an offensive weapon, but as I've noted above, I'd much rather them get some sort of pitching help and let these bats do what they can do.

The Cards get to kick off the non-Albert portion of the schedule by facing one of the toughtest out there.  Roy Halladay goes for the Phillies and here's what he's done against the Cardinal hitters:

PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS IBB HBP GDP
Albert Pujols 8 7 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 .143 .250 .143 .393 0 0 1
Skip Schumaker 7 6 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 .333 .429 .333 .762 0 0 0
Ryan Theriot 6 5 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 .200 .333 .200 .533 0 0 0
Matt Holliday 4 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .250 .250 .250 .500 0 0 0
Yadier Molina 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Colby Rasmus 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Jon Jay 1 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1.000 1.000 1.000 2.000 0 0 0
Kyle Lohse 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Total 33 30 6 0 0 0 1 3 3 .200 .273 .200 .473 0 0 1
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/21/2011.

They've not faced him a lot, since he's spent most of his career in the American League and the Phils are in a different division, but it's tough to believe that this is a case of not seeing him enough.  It's a tough mountain tonight.

Kyle McClellan goes against the Phillies.  His numbers:
   
PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS IBB HBP GDP
Placido Polanco 7 7 2 0 0 1 1 0 0 .286 .286 .714 1.000 0 0 0
Jimmy Rollins 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Shane Victorino 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Ross Gload 3 3 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 .333 .333 .667 1.000 0 0 0
Ben Francisco 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Ryan Howard 2 2 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 .500 .500 2.000 2.500 0 0 1
Raul Ibanez 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 .000 .500 .000 .500 0 0 0
Carlos Ruiz 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 1
Chase Utley 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Roy Oswalt 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Total 31 30 4 1 0 2 3 1 4 .133 .161 .367 .528 0 0 2
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 6/21/2011.

He's been effective against them in limited doses.  We'll see if he's more rested and ready to go this time than he was in his first outing off the DL.  Another one like that may cause some wheels to turn as well.

The rest of the season starts tonight.  Let's see what the boys can make of it.

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