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Nature 1, Baseball 0To the surprise of no one that knows how to read a weather radar, there was no baseball in Busch Stadium last night. Thankfully there wasn't any damage either, as there were some significant storms that rolled through the middle of the country, with a seeming focus on the St. Louis area. So, as my post from last night pointed out, it's Ernie Banks time. They'll play two today, with Jake Westbrook and John Lannan trying it again at 1:15. This does put a kink into the weekend pitching matchups, as Westbrook was supposed to go Sunday night against the Reds. I've got an idea on how they might deal with that, but we'll get to that in a bit. Before all the weather came through yesterday, the team activated Nick Punto from the disabled list and brought up Mark Hamilton to take over for Skip Schumaker and Allen Craig. Punto says he's ready to go, citing an intensive extended spring training, but he hasn't had any minor league rehab. Will that be a problem? He's supposed to start in the second game today, so we'll find out fairly quickly. Then again, being that offense isn't necessarily Punto's strong suit, maybe we won't notice. I said above I had an idea on what might happen for this weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if Hamilton got sent back down on Saturday and a pitcher was brought up for that game, then Chris Carpenter was bumped into the Sunday night slot. I know Tony would not like a rookie to be in that prime-time slot on ESPN, but he doesn't seem to have much qualm with them being on the Fox Game of the Week, as noted last year when he flipped Carpenter and Jaime Garcia for just those reasons. Not sure who would come up and they'd get sent back down the next day with another bat returning to the bigs, but that's one thought about how to get around the problem. Then again, since my thinking has been pretty much 100% wrong lately, good chance it won't come to fruition. As expected, Ryan Franklin is officially not the closer for a while. There's no determination on who will get the ninth inning or whether it will be multiple pitchers on a matchup basis. I figure that there will be some trying out of people in that role and perhaps a quicker hook in the ninth than if there was an established guy out there. Out of two games today, we might start getting an idea on how it will look. It was pointed out to me yesterday that this is the first series that Rick Ankiel has played in Busch Stadium since he left at the end of the 2009 series. He started 2010 with the Royals, but last year was one of the rare years when Kansas City didn't have a home-and-home with the Redbirds and Ankiel was injured when the Cards went to KC. Of course, he was then traded to the Braves, but the Atlanta squad had already come to Busch, though he did play in a September series in Atlanta against St. Louis, going 0-1 with a walk in one game and appearing in two others as a defensive replacement. In a wonderful gesture, he took out an ad that thanks the fans for his time in Cardinal red. You can see a picture of that ad here if you are out of the St. Louis area. There's also an article today about dynamic pricing, showing how ticket prices will change against the two teams the Cards face on this homestand as well as their fluctuation during the season. You'll recall that dynamic pricing was part of the discussion during our time at Busch during UCB Weekend. We looked at Westbrook and Lannan yesterday, but this evening's game puts Jaime Garcia on the mound. Here's what he's done in limited time against the Nats:
Not just a whole lot you can say about 23 plate appearances, can you? Which leads us to how Jordan Zimmermann has done against the Cardinals:
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 HeroesMatt 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) GoatsMatt 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 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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I predict a double-header switch, despite using Punto, who is useless. Is Craig hurt?
Craig has a groin strain, going on the DL with Schumaker yesterday. Hamilton and Punto are the ones replacing them.
Weather is terrible during the early spring, so this is why the MLB should shorten their season by at least a month. Start in mid-May and the weather will be nicer and warmer.