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Unable To Wrench Away A Victory

Posted on August 8, 2012 at 7:06 AM
Filed Under: Heroes and Goats | San Francisco Giants | St. Louis Cardinals
The way the Cardinal pitching has been going, seeing the Giants put up three in the first was a jarring sight.  Unfortunately, it jarred the offense right out of the club.

I don't think it was terribly surprising that Barry Zito was the guy that stopped the Cardinals.  It seems so often that when the club is overwhelmingly favored, at least by the stats, things take a turn.  I mean, Zito had a 7+ ERA in his last three starts and an 11+ ERA for his career at Busch Stadium.  You'd think that this offense, which was starting to hum, would be all over that.

In fact, save for Allen Craig, the Hero of the piece that we'll get to later, nobody did much of anything.  The Cards were able to put two runners on a number of times, but they did it after two were out in the inning and weren't able to string three hits in a row together.  I don't think that's a failure--three in a row is tough to do--but it'd been nice to put some runners on and have some outs to play with.

The first inning showed the frustration that was to come.  The Cards get two hits, after two were out, from the two guys highlighted before the game as having struggled against Zito, Matt Holliday and Carlos Beltran.  I think that's a good indication that it's opposite night and everything you expect about the game is going to be turned on its head.  Indeed, Zito being masterful is about the last thing you expect.

Craig, though, had him figured out, blasting two home runs which accounted for all the scoring.  You know a guy is pretty good at the plate when he's inspired as many nicknames as years he's been in the league.  We've got Professional Hitter, Amazing Whacker Guy, and of course The Wrench.  All of which are pretty descriptive and could fit during the era of colorful nicknames, so that's an impressive feat in today's game of A-Rods and Carps.

When you look at his career numbers, you really understand why those nicknames have taken hold.  Due to injuries and the like, he's played in three seasons but really has just over a season's worth of appearances.  Yet here's his line, if averaged over 162 games:

.291/.347/.524, 81 R, 37 2B, 26 HR, 99 RBI

Just for comparison's sake, here's Joey Votto, considered one of the best hitters in the NL.

.316/.412/.556, 97 R, 44 2B, 31 HR, 104 RBI

Votto has him, but it's pretty close.  With Craig having had injuries and not always playing regularly (though he is now with Lance Berkman out), I'm not sure we always appreciate just how good he's been and hopefully will continue to be.

For my Goat, even though Lance Lynn seemed to struggle all night, he kept the Giants off the board (save a disputed play later) after Buster Posey's three-run homer in the first.  If the offense had been working, they likely could have overcome that and Lynn kept them in the game, so he's not the pick.

I'm going to go with Skip Schumaker.  Put into this game because of his career numbers against Zito, not only did he go 0-4, he did not help the defensive cause any, including the first batter of the game.  If he can get to that, it could have changed the complexion of the inning, and since that was the biggest inning of the game..........

In other news, can you believe this idiot with the laser pointer at Busch?  It's possible that, being the teenager that he was, he didn't remember the whole blowup with laser pointers in Philadelphia a few years back.  That's only going to cause trouble and it's not like you can get away with it--they don't sell laser pointers at the gift shop.  Hopefully he's banned from the park for that because there's no place for it in the game.

Joe Kelly goes tonight for the Cardinals.  Kelly continues to be effective and should be able to keep the runs to a minimum tonight.  Obviously, the Giants have never seen him before, which hopefully will be to his advantage.

The Giants' hurler will be Ryan Vogelsong.  I remember when he was with the Pirates and no big deal, but he's found something coming over to the Giants.  He comes into this game with a 2.38 ERA and is coming off one of his worst outings of the year, when he gave up four runs in 6.1 innings in Colorado.  There's a good chance this could be a low scoring game tonight.  

PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS IBB HBP GDP
Carlos Beltran 10 9 4 2 0 1 3 1 2 .444 .500 1.000 1.500 0 0 0
Yadier Molina 9 8 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 .375 .444 .375 .819 0 0 0
Rafael Furcal 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Matt Holliday 4 3 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 .333 .500 .333 .833 0 0 0
Jon Jay 3 3 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 .333 .333 .333 .667 0 0 0
Allen Craig 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .500 .500 .500 1.000 0 0 0
Skip Schumaker 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Total 35 32 10 2 0 1 4 3 5 .313 .371 .469 .840 0 0 0
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 8/8/2012.

Small sample size looks pretty good, but I don't know how much of that is from the last couple of years. Of course, Beltran played with him last year, so maybe he has some tips for his new team about his old teammate. We can hope, at least!


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Heroes
Carlos Beltran (5)
Matt Holliday (4)
Jon Jay (4)
Daniel Descalso (3)
Matt Carpenter (3)
Jaime Garcia (3)
Shelby Miller (3)
Yadier Molina (3)
Adam Wainwright (3)
Allen Craig (2)
Pete Kozma (2)
Lance Lynn (2)
Edward Mujica (2)
Jake Westbrook (2)
Joe Kelly (1)
Tyler Lyons (1)
Seth Maness (1)
Trevor Rosenthal (1)
Ty Wigginton (1)

2012 Top Hero: Matt Holliday (17)
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
David Freese (5)
Jon Jay (5)
Joe Kelly (4)
Mitchell Boggs (3)
Matt Carpenter (3)
Allen Craig (3)
Daniel Descalso (3)
Jaime Garcia (3)
Pete Kozma (3)
Yadier Molina (3)
Matt Carpenter (2)
Lance Lynn (2)
Carlos Beltran (1)
Matt Holliday (1)
Seth Maness (1)
Shane Robinson (1)
Fernando Salas (1)
Adam Wainwright (1)
Jake Westbrook (1)

2012 Top Goat: Rafael Furcal (11)
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)

Cardinal Nation Approval Ratings (March 2013)
Yadier Molina 96.2% (up 8.8%)
Chris Carpenter 89.8% (down 0.3%)
Derrick Goold 89.1% (up 6.3%)
Matt Holliday 88.4% (up 0.9%)
Allen Craig 88.3%
Adam Wainwright 88.2% (down 3.7%)
Jose Oquendo 87.1% (up 2.4%)
Jason Motte 86.9%
John Mozeliak 86.5% (up 1.1%)
United Cardinal Bloggers 85.2% (up 6.3%)
Bill DeWitt 85.1% (up 5.3%)
Mike Shannon 85.1% (down 0.2%)
John Rooney 84.5% (up 3.0%)
Mike Matheny 84.4% (up 3.3%)
David Freese 82.9% (down 2.6%)
Jon Jay 81.8% (up 10.7%)
Lance Berkman 80.6% (down 8.0%)
Jenifer Langosch 79.5%
Lance Lynn 79.5%
Dan McLaughlin 76.0% (up 8.0%)
Jim Hayes 73.0% (up 1.1%)
Ricky Horton 65.5% (down 2.0%)
Jaime Garcia 64.1%
Albert Pujols 59.2% (up 4.3%)
Ballpark Village 58.3%
Joe Strauss 54.3% (down 13.4%)

2012
Tony La Russa 88.2% (up 17.4%)
Mark McGwire 82.6% (up 20.1%)
Skip Schumaker 73.3% (up 9.2%)
B.J. Rains 69.5% (down 0.9%)
Kyle Lohse 68.9% (up 13.8%)
Al Hrabosky 66.4% (up 3.2%)
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%


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