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Uninspiring Baseball

Posted on July 20, 2011 at 7:05 AM
Filed Under: Heroes and Goats | New York Mets | St. Louis Cardinals
I don't know what it is, but it often seems like there's some dull baseball when the Cards go to New York.  (Save the postseason, of course, but that's a whole different animal.)  Last night fit into that bill, with the Cardinals struggling to hit and having some old story lines--both from this season and the distant past--come out to play.

There wasn't much to celebrate besides Lance Berkman's towering home run that provided the final score, giving him the Hero status.  Other than that, there wasn't much to see.  Cards managed five hits, none more than a single besides Berkman's blast, and just two walks.  Dillon McGee added to the Cardinal history of not being able to manage much against a pitcher that they've never seen, something I thought the team was starting to leave behind.

On the down side, Kyle Lohse didn't pitch well (10 hits, three walks and didn't make it through the sixth) but oftentimes the fact that he just allowed four runs would have been enough for the team to at least be in the ballgame.  Two of those runs scored off of a double allowed by Raul Valdes, but other than that the bullpen did a solid job of keeping the team in the game.

Because Lohse was able to mainly pitch around trouble and because he drove in the first run of the game, you can't give him the Goat.  Which means that it has to go to Albert Pujols, who got back into that early season mode by going 0-4 and grounding into two double plays.  Albert hasn't had a hit since he smoked that three-run home run in the fifth inning of Saturday's game, which has dropped his average back from the high of .283 to the mid-.270s.  I continue to want to see him get to .300 and streaks like this don't help.

If the Mets were going to win, though, it was nice to see old friend Jason Isringhausen pick up the save.  He's just six away from 300 and being that the Mets have traded Francisco Rodriguez, it'd be great to see Izzy pick up enough to get the milestone.

After some reports this weekend that he might be out for the rest of the season, Nick Punto has actually avoided the disabled list.  Apparently, he dipped into the team's healing water as well.  Actually, it sounds like he went out and just threw angry and that seemed to work.  Not at all what our mothers told us growing up, but whatever works.

Speaking of middle infielders, Ryan Theriot was suspended for two games for his antics on Sunday.  Theriot appealed, but after last night's showing he probably shouldn't have.  It's the Mets, anyway.  Better to sit against them than have to against Milwaukee or someone later in the season, though the Cards probably didn't know if Punto was available when the decision was made and that could have left them pretty short at short.

Quite an interesting article on the rebuilding of the Busch Stadium grass after the big U2 concert.  It was a little sickening to look at the whole field being torn up and I hope that there won't be any noticeable scars, as it were, from the whole ordeal when the Cards get back into town.

Apparently the idea of Kyle McClellan sliding back into the bullpen if the Cards get a starter isn't a completely done deal.  That said, if the Cards acquire a starter, I don't know who else would move and I sincerely hope the team wouldn't go with a six-man rotation.  Something has to give, and it's likely to be the guy that has bullpen experience and hasn't gone through a full season as a starter.  Just a week and a half until the trading deadline, so we should find out soon.

Cards try to get back on track tonight, trailing the division-leading Pirates by 1.5 games now. McClellan gets to audition to keep his job by going up against knuckleballing R.A. Dickey.  The numbers are below.

McClellan vs. Mets:

PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS IBB HBP GDP
Willie Harris 5 4 2 0 0 1 3 1 1 .500 .600 1.250 1.850 0 0 0
Jason Bay 3 3 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Carlos Beltran 3 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .333 .333 .333 .667 0 0 0
Angel Pagan 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Dan Murphy 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Scott Hairston 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Ronny Paulino 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Total 18 17 3 0 0 1 4 1 4 .176 .222 .353 .575 0 0 0
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 7/20/2011.

Not a team he's faced much before, so small sample sizes and all that. 

Dickey vs. Cardinals:
 
PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS IBB HBP GDP
Gerald Laird 7 7 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 .286 .286 .286 .571 0 0 0
Nick Punto 7 7 2 1 0 0 0 0 1 .286 .286 .429 .714 0 0 0
Matt Holliday 5 4 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 .250 .400 .250 .650 0 0 0
Albert Pujols 5 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0
Jon Jay 4 3 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 .333 .500 .667 1.167 0 0 0
Yadier Molina 4 4 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 .250 .250 .250 .500 0 0 0
Skip Schumaker 3 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .333 .333 .333 .667 0 0 1
Colby Rasmus 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .500 .500 .500 1.000 0 0 1
Total 37 35 9 2 0 0 2 2 3 .257 .297 .314 .612 0 0 2
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 7/20/2011.

Not much here either. Albert's never gotten a hit off of him, so his slide could continue. We'll see tonight!  If you are online tonight during the game, check out Fox Sports Midwest's Game Connect. Pretty interesting stuff there and a lot of information.  Enjoy!

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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%


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