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!

Sweeping Our Cares Away

Posted on August 12, 2010 at 8:18 AM
Filed Under: Cincinnati Reds | Heroes and Goats | St. Louis Cardinals
Earlier this year, the Cardinals took the first two games from the Toronto Blue Jays on the road and sent out Adam Wainwright to complete the sweep.  Wainwright, though, had one of his rare off games and the Cards weren't able to use the brooms.

This time, though, Wainwright was able to seal the deal and continue to build his Cy Young case with seven scoreless innings, allowing only two hits.  Wainwright's tied for the league lead in wins, only 2 points back from the league lead in ERA, and third (only 10 back) in strikeouts.  Who else can make a better all-around case, especially when you factor in that his team is in first place?  Some would probably put Josh Johnson in the discussion, but as much as wins have been discredited for pitchers, a seven win difference (17 for Waino, 10 for Johnson) has to factor in there somewhere.  Right now, I think Wainwright's the leader in the clubhouse, as it were.

However, as great as he was yesterday, you can't go away from Colby Rasmus as the Hero.  The birthday boy took a spectacular at-bat against a guy he's been a bit critical about in the past.  He hung in there before finally getting his pitch and launching it over the wall for the grand slam.  That's all you are going to need with Wainwright dealing, but Rasmus did have another hit and another run before it was all said and done.

Felipe Lopez gets the Goat with his 0-5 in the leadoff role.  One of the more impressive things about Rasmus's grand slam is that it got to that point anyway, as Lopez had made the second out of the inning, leaving no one on.  I'm still not sure about trading off Ryan Ludwick, but you have to acknowledge that, at least right now, Jon Jay is doing the job.  His double started the rally that led to the slam.

Lots of off-the-field news as well from yesterday.  First off, Jeff Suppan goes on the DL with a strained muscle (I believe he strained it before crawling out of Tuesday's brawl, but that might have aggravated it) and, because Jason LaRue wound up with a concussion from being kicked by Johnny Cueto (and how scary is it that, if it'd been an inch or two more, the Cards would have had their second freak blinding incident in three years) and with Memphis out on the West Coast, the Cardinals called up Springfield catcher Stephen Hill.

While Hill won't be up long--either LaRue will come back or Bryan Anderson or Matt Pagnozzi will be recalled--it'll be interesting to see if he gets a few at-bats or a start before being sent down.  I also was surprised to see that Hill is the first person to come directly from Springfield since the AA team was moved there five years ago.  The Cards really do take a deliberate approach with some of these prospects, making sure they get some AAA time.

Secondly, Kyle Lohse has been confirmed as pitching Sunday's game against the Chicago Cubs.  Lohse had a dominant start in Memphis a couple of nights ago and seems ready to go.  Sliding him into the fifth slot only bolsters the rotation, especially if he's anywhere close to 2008 form.  As Joe Strauss said in his chat yesterday, I don't expect we'll see Suppan again until rosters expand, and probably not a whole lot after that.

It's the first time Cardinal Nation has been excited to see Kyle Lohse, I think.  I honestly think the surgery is going to help him a lot, and even if he can go out there and put up four runs in seven innings, that'll win a lot of games when you are going against the back of another team's rotation.

Did you know that Tuesday's Cards/Reds game was the highest rated game ever on Fox Sports Midwest?  And that was before the brawl!  You have to figure that, if yesterday's game had been a night one, they might have even topped those marks.  For your information, the second-place game is the night the Cards clinched the division vs. Houston back in 2000.  That game got a 14.7 share, Tuesday's matchup got 17.6.  It'll probably be a while before that mark is topped!

My friend Chris Jaffe has a regular slot over at Hardball Times.  Today, he writes up a Bob Gibson game that, while not one of his best ones, was a very memorable one anyway.  Head on over there and read up on a little Cardinal history.

Off days after day games are always rough.  You go over 48 hours without baseball and that's never good.  Get through it the best you can and we'll talk about the Cubs series tomorrow.


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