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!

Wishes Granted

Posted on April 29, 2010 at 8:00 AM
Filed Under: Atlanta Braves | Heroes and Goats | St. Louis Cardinals
In yesterday's entry, I said this:

"I'd like to see them get a lead and then gradually increase it"

As I've said before, sometimes it's like they read this blog.  Last night, the Cardinals go out and score in the first, add on in the third, and then just kept going.  With any Cardinal starter right now (even Kyle Lohse, if he's gotten through a couple of good innings), you never get too worried if there's a lead, because the pitching has just been so good.

There are a lot of good candidates for Hero from last night's ball game, but I'm a sucker for pitching, especially when there's no obvious offensive selection.  It was great to see Skip Schumaker get a couple of hits (bet he won't be changing out of the high socks for a while), Colby Rasmus to drive in one with his first hit off a lefthander, David Freese celebrating his birthday right with two hits and two RBI, and if Albert Pujols hits a ball about a foot another way, he drives in three or four instead of just one.

All those were solid candidates, but you have to give the tip of the hat to Jaime Garcia.  It'll be interesting to see how he does when he starts seeing teams a second or third time, but right now he's just amazing to watch.  Who's have thought he'd get through his first month in a rotation with an ERA just slightly over one?  (And, more surprisingly, not even lead his own team in ERA!)  Garcia should be named rookie of the month this month by MLB and has put a strong foot forward in the rookie of the year race.  Jason Heyward may get more press, but Garcia has been better overall.

On the flip side, we have Matt Holliday.  Another hitless night, though he did walk and score a run.  If we counted pre-game, though, we'd have to find someone else, because smashing the C in Big Mac land is pretty darn cool, especially when you could see the ball still sitting up there.  Holliday thinks he's got an idea why he's been struggling, so we'll see if it works out.

Before we get to today's matchups, I want to talk a little about the new app that the Post-Dispatch has out for the iPhone and other mediums.  Full disclosure: I was provided a free copy of it, though no reviewing strings were attached to that.  I downloaded it last night and played around a little with it.  It's a pretty sharp thing.  It's got Bird Land on there, which is a must of course, and it's got the stories from the P-D.   It also comes with pictures and news of all the players, and it has an easy-to-navigate menu so that you can find all the stories related to Pujols or Holliday or whomever.  It even allows you to read Derrick Goold's Twitter posts, as well as other P-D members.  All in all, I think it's worth the $3 that they are charging for it.  If you are into these kind of things, it's worth checking out.

Cards go for the sweep in the afternoon tilt today.  A note that Fox Sports Midwest will be doing a live chat during the game, so check them out over there while the actions going on.  Adam Wainwright goes for the Cardinals, so you feel good about the chances of a sweep.  Here's what the Wagonmaker has done against the team that drafted him.

PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS SH SF IBB HBP GDP
Nate McLouth 12 9 3 1 0 0 1 3 2 .333 .500 .444 .944 0 0 0 0 0
David Ross 12 11 2 1 0 1 3 1 4 .182 .250 .545 .795 0 0 0 0 0
Yunel Escobar 10 9 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 .000 .100 .000 .100 0 0 0 0 2
Chipper Jones 9 8 3 0 0 0 1 1 1 .375 .444 .375 .819 0 0 0 0 0
Brian McCann 9 9 2 1 0 0 1 0 2 .222 .222 .333 .556 0 0 0 0 0
Matt Diaz 6 5 2 0 0 0 0 1 0 .400 .500 .400 .900 0 0 0 0 0
Omar Infante 6 6 4 0 0 0 1 0 1 .667 .667 .667 1.333 0 0 0 0 0
Derek Lowe 4 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0 0 0
Jordan Schafer 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 .000 .667 .000 .667 0 0 0 0 0
Martin Prado 2 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 .500 .500 .500 1.000 0 0 0 0 0
Jo-Jo Reyes 2 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0 0 0
Clint Sammons 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0 0 0
Total 76 67 17 3 0 1 7 9 11 .254 .342 .343 .685 0 0 0 0 2
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/29/2010.

Nothing really stands out in this.  None of the Braves have faced him all that often and there's just a lot of singles in that group.

The Braves send out Jair Jurrjens to try to stop the bleeding.  Numbers against the Redbirds:

PA AB H 2B 3B HR RBI BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS SH SF IBB HBP GDP
Matt Holliday 14 13 7 3 0 0 4 0 3 .538 .571 .769 1.341 0 0 0 1 0
Ryan Ludwick 11 10 4 0 0 0 0 1 2 .400 .455 .400 .855 0 0 0 0 0
Albert Pujols 11 10 2 1 0 0 1 1 3 .200 .273 .300 .573 0 0 1 0 0
Skip Schumaker 11 8 2 1 0 0 0 3 0 .250 .455 .375 .830 0 0 0 0 0
Yadier Molina 9 9 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 .222 .222 .222 .444 0 0 0 0 0
Brendan Ryan 6 5 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 .200 .333 .200 .533 0 0 0 0 0
Felipe Lopez 3 3 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 .333 .333 .333 .667 0 0 0 0 0
Joe Mather 3 3 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 .333 .333 .667 1.000 0 0 0 0 0
Colby Rasmus 3 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 .333 .333 .333 .667 0 0 0 0 0
Chris Carpenter 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 .000 0 0 0 0 0
Total 72 65 21 6 0 0 6 6 11 .323 .389 .415 .804 0 0 1 1 0
Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 4/29/2010.

Boy, if Holliday has figured it out, today would be a good day for him to show it.  And while it's not like Jurrjens just owns Pujols, AP hasn't had a day off yet.  Could it be we'll see Mather play a little first and let the big man have some rest?

No blog post tomorrow, as it's my church's annual BBQ and I'll be there from about 3:30-7.  That's AM to PM.  Long day, but a lot of fun.  Hopefully there's a lot of good Cardinal baseball to write about when next we speak!


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

Download the iPhone or Android UCB app by clicking on the nice orange picture.
Open in Mobile App
Other Cardinal Blogs

Recommended Cardinal Forum

Other Cardinal Sites

General Baseball Blogs/Sites



Heroes
Lance Berkman (24)
Albert Pujols (19)
Matt Holliday (15)
Chris Carpenter (10)
Kyle Lohse (9)
Yadier Molina (9)
Ryan Theriot (8)
David Freese (7)
Jaime Garcia (7)
Jon Jay (7)
Jake Westbrook (6)
Allen Craig (5)
Kyle McClellan (5)
Colby Rasmus (5)
Edwin Jackson (4)
Skip Schumaker (4)
Daniel Descalso (3)
Rafael Furcal (2)
Gerald Laird (2)
Nick Punto (2)
Marc Rzepczynski (2)
Fernando Salas (2)
Mitchell Boggs (1)
Daniel Descalso (1)
Lance Lynn (1)

2010 Top Heroes: Matt Holliday and Albert Pujols (24)
2009 Top Hero: Albert Pujols (28)
2008 Top Hero: Albert Pujols (25)

Goats
Ryan Theriot (12)
Albert Pujols (11)
Jake Westbrook (10)
David Freese (8)
Ryan Franklin (7)
Jaime Garcia (7)
Fernando Salas (7)
Kyle Lohse (6)
Kyle McClellan (6)
Colby Rasmus (6)
Skip Schumaker (6)
Miguel Batista (5)
Chris Carpenter (5)
Daniel Descalso (5)
Matt Holliday (5)
Jon Jay (5)
Jason Motte (5)
Allen Craig (4)
Rafael Furcal (4)
Tyler Greene (4)
Yadier Molina (4)
Lance Berkman (3)
Mitchell Boggs (3)
Gerald Laird (3)
Edwin Jackson (2)
Trever Miller (2)
Corey Patterson (2)
Marc Rzepczynski (2)
Matt Carpenter (1)
Maikel Cleto (1)
Tony Cruz (1)
Octavio Dotel (1)
Mark Hamilton (1)
Lance Lynn (1)
Nick Punto (1)
Arthur Rhodes (1)
Eduardo Sanchez (1)
Raul Valdes (1)
PJ Walters (1)

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 2011)
    Adam Wainwright 94.7% (down 0.9%)
    Matt Holliday 91.1% (up 6.6%)
    Albert Pujols 90.4% (down 8.3%)
    Dave Duncan 87.9% (up 0.9%)
    Derrick Goold 87.8%
    Chris Carpenter 86.9% (down 6.7%)
    Matthew Leach 85.5%
    Mike Shannon 84.9% (down 4.6%)
    John Rooney 84.3% (up 8.1%)
    Yadier Molina 83.7% (down 8.3%)
    Colby Rasmus 81.8% (up 5.0%)
    Pop Warner 76.7%
    Jim Hayes 76.1%
    John Mozeliak 74.1% (down 12.0%)
    Ryan Franklin 72.8% (up 3.1%)
    Bill Dewitt 71.0% (down 12.0%)
    Tony La Russa 70.8% (down 10.2%)
    BJ Rains 70.4%
    Ricky Horton 69.1%
    John Vuch 68.9%
    Jeff Luhnow 66.4%
    Skip Schumaker 64.1% (down 17.0%)
    Al Hrabosky 63.2% (up 19.0%)
    Mark McGwire 62.5% (down 10.7%)
    Dan Lozano 58.7%
    Joe Strauss 57.5%
    Kyle Lohse 55.1% (down 11.7%)

    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