Half Way Thoughts - On the Cards

To make-up for my lack of blogging activity lately, I'm going to use the holiday weekend to do a series of posts. Today I'll cover the main team. Later today or tomorrow I'll discuss the NL as a whole. And then finally I'll briefly go over the AL race and give my mid-season awards and playoff predictions based on what we've seen so far. So, here's how I stack-up our team so far:

Where we stand now: Well, the team obviously hasn't played great since April. The main reason for that is the offense. Amazingly, Albert is having probably his best season ever to this point, which is really saying something. The rest of team, however, has been not too good. Shu and Ryan have done a pretty good job of getting on base thankfully, or else Albert would never get pitched to. The so-called power hitters in Ludwick, Ankiel and Duncan have been dreadful, though Luds has begun to show signs of life this week. I'm beginning to wonder if Ankiel will ever to disciplined enough to truly be an everyday player and I'm glad he's a free-agent after this year right now. Rasmus looks like not just the future in CF, but the better player by far right now. Duncan to me has looked like he at least has a clue at the plate, but he just hasn't shown the power this year yet. You have to wonder if his neck is 100%. I definitely applaud the DeRosa acquisition by management. He is a big upgrade at third for starters, and is the kind of versatile player LaRussa loves. It's not Mozeliak's fault he got hurt right away, that's just bad luck. Certainly Perez has the potential to be a good closer in the future, but right now, Franklin has been golden and you have to give-up something good to get something good. IF we can get DeRosa healthy and a couple of the outfielders step-up a little, that should be enough offense -because the pitching has been outstanding. The best pitched game I've seen all year was this past Wednesday with Wainwright going 9 and striking-out 12. Carp has been great, Pineiro very good. Wellenmeyer has been the weak-link, but he showed good signs this past start. Thompson has been a decent fill-in, but fortunately Lohse should be back in a week. The bullpen has been almost the polar-opposite of last year. Led by the near-perfect Franklin, they've given-up few leads and often kept us in other close games late. Now, yesterday was one of the few times the offense has managed to take advantage of that and stoke a come-back, but I believe more of those are in the future. We'll need Kinney and Motte to pitch better than they have with Perez gone, but I'm hopeful they can do that.

So what about the future, Conan? Well, looking ahead, all the way to September, 2009, the NL Central is obviously still up for grabs, as well as the wild-card. As poorly as we've played, we sit today atop the division by one game over the Brewers. Granted, we only have a 6 game lead over the LAST PLACE team (the Pirates), so that shows we still have a lot of work to do. Personally, I don't think the Brewers have the pitching to stay with over the long run unless they can find another Sabathia-type deal out there. The Cubs, obviously, are a team to watch. Their line-up has been even worse than ours though, and they don't have a Pujols to carry them. Their bullpen has also been a problem. Honestly, the Reds could be a team to watch if they can get Volquez back, because that would give them a great rotation. Overall, however, I think this race is ours to lose. I feel we've weathered the worst from an offensive stand-point, and the team should just better from here on out. Lohse and DeRosa hopefully shouldn't be out much longer and there is even hope Glaus could return sometime in the next 6 weeks or so. Certainly, other injuries could happen. We always keep a watchful eye on Carp and I'm a little worried we've asked too much of Franklin so far (has has pitched the last three days in a row for instance). Still, I think the team has to start hitting and hitting for power, and even a little more run support should send us on a big streak which could easily allow us to run away and hide from this mediocre division. It would be nice to have a little lead heading into what should be a fun and historic all-star break for the Cardinals and the city of St. Louis.




-Trey

A great story in the making?

Well, the offense seems to be slowly waking-up over the last ten games or so. Ludwick still isn't going great, though he did have a grand slam yesterday. Ankiel has seemed to find his power stroke, which is nice, but it drives me crazy to watch him continue to chase high fastballs and breaking balls out of the zone time and again. The real surprise the last two against the Royals though has been Khalil Greene. He has been back for three games, and has started at third the last two games and homered in both. I know the kid has had a tough time, and at this point, you just hope he can get out there and play free. Anything he gives us is bonus, and we certainly need to get something at third base. The last two days are a good start, but they don't a season make, so we'll just have to wait and see. On the other side, the starting pitching has continued to be quite good. Pineiro was a little unlucky to lose on Thursday. Thompson continued to surprise with his strong starts yesterday, and Carp was again masterful today. The team seems to be getting out of it's slump, we're back in first place in the Central even, so hopefully more good things are ahead.



-Trey

Key Victories

Well, I wasn't real optomistic heading into this Detroit series after Cliff Lee dominated us on Sunday. Facing Detroit's three best in Verlander, Jackson and Porcello was a daunting task to say the least, but the lads came through in a big way. Chasing Verlander yesterday was especially impressive as he has been completely dominate the last six weeks or so. I have to give Wellenmeyer props for today's game. Jackson was pretty good, but he was a little better. Todd has definitely been the weak link in the rotation so far this year, but he has somehow managed to get several key wins along the way, so I hope he keeps hanging in there and hopefully continues to send the ERA south as well. Hopefully we will get the sweep tomorrow. I'm looking forward to watching the game on MLB network with the great Bob Costas announcing. If you don't have MLB network, I highly recommend it. Their late night coverage with the likes of Harold Reynolds, Mich Williams, Barry Larkin, Al Leiter and former Cardinal Joe Magrane blow's ESPN's baseball tonight away and the Thursday games with Costas doing play-by-play are golden. An another note, there are some exciting things happening in the UCB right now. Daniel, of C70 at the bat, interviewed the Wizard, Ozzie Smith yesterday for the UCB radio hour. You can check it out by clicking the link here. Next week, Mike of Stan Musial's Stance will be interviewing Bruce Sutter I believe on Tuesday as well for the UCB radio hour, so keep your eye out for that. Pretty slick stuff. Nice to see the HOF's giving some time to us bloggers, that's for sure!



-Trey

Post-game thoughts

I watched the entire Cards-Brewers game tonight, and I had a few observations:

1. I've seen all of Wainwright's last three starts on TV, and he's been quite impressive. As John mentioned earlier, the lowering of his arm-slot seems to have made all the difference in the world. Tonight, he had a little trouble locating the fastball the first three innings, which caused him to fall behind a few hitters. When he got ahead as he did later in the game, the Brewers had no chance, because the slider and ESPECIALLY the curve were lights-out. In his previous two starts, it actually seemed he didn't quite have the great curve if you can believe it, but he certainly did today. As awesome as it is to have Carp back, this is the guy we can count on every start for the rest of the year.

2. The offense finally woke-up. Albert had two RBIs, but really it was the supporting cast finally stepping-up. Shu and Thurston each had a couple of hits to set the table. Stavinoha, Rasmus, Duncan, and even Wainwright all homered. Stavinoha's was the first of his MLB career. That's nice for him because.......

3. Ludwick should be back Friday. This was probably the best thing I heard all night, and in such a solid overall game by the Cards at that. The ESPN crew seemed to think that Ludwick is close to 100% already, but will return officially against the Giants on Friday. Ankiel hasn't played the last two days despite being off the DL, but is thought to be nearing 100% as well.


All in all, probably the most pleasant experience I've had watching a game this year. A great performance by the team, and lots of other good news to boot.



-Trey

The strong starts continue

Just a quick note here before I head to bed. First, great job by John and everyone else that participated in the UCB's progressive game blog on Saturday. That was really a lot of fun to read. In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't contribute because I would have only brought the level of quality down! I'm just not witty enough to hang with those guys. Second, how 'bout that starting pitching? In seven games, the pitching staff as a whole has allowed a mere six runs. Sadly, we have lost the last two because the offense is just about as cold as the pitching is hot. Carp's start today was simply dominating. I was surprised to see him go eight in only his second start back, but when he is cruising like that, I guess there are no worries. I had said a while ago we needed the starters to pick things up for the offense, and they have responded big-time. The game is on ESPN tomorrow night, so I'm looking forward to seeing Wainwright keep the ball rolling and hopefully a little better hitting behind him. Ankiel is back, so that should help, and hopefully Luds isn't too far behind. Anyway, it's sleep time, so hopefully I'll dream of that shot Albert hit last Wednesday that knocked-out the "i" in the Big Mac Land sign.



-Trey

UCB Progressive Game Blog--7th

Welcome to the 7th inning of this year's version of the UCB Progressive Game Blog! Thanks to Whiteyball for handling the 6th. Let's get started.

The hands-on LaRussa gets back to work and makes a defensive shift moving Skippy out to RF and brings in Ryan to cover 4. I tell you, I'm a big fan of Ryan. Not only has he developed quite a glove, but his overall play is just fun to watch. Plus, I like the ironed-lid. One thing that drives me nuts about him--he watches the ball too much. Don't get me wrong, after you make contact you're gonna watch--but I've seen several occasions where he could have beat out a play if he wasn't watching it all the way and instead put his head down and ran. E.g., watch the 2nd take of the 2nd great play Freel makes. If Ryan puts his head down instead of babysitting it, he beats the throw.

Enough nit-picking. Skippy has hit 3 HR's in 30 AB. I think it's time we start talking about what to do with Kahlil Greene. Although Skippy is a defensive liability, so is K. Greene. Ryan has proved to be outstanding in the field--and his stick is about the same. I'm tired of Greene's sour attitude too. Maybe I'm not being fair. It's tough to be the new guy--still, when you combine poor offense, poor defense, and a bad attitude...

Wow, Debbie Downer. Sorry.

After a sinker misses low, Callaspo harmlessly grounds out to Pujols. Lohse has added to the consecutive high-quality outings by the Card's rotation. One of the biggest reasons: note the BB count during the current 4 game stretch (5 if counting tonight) vs. when we got swept by the Brew-Crew. Simply stunning. Lohse hasn't given up a free pass all night.

After Olivo runs the count full after a steady diet of pitches low and away, Olivo can't get the bat off the shoulder. I think he was expecting another curveball to drop out of the zone--but the fastball paints the corner.

Lohse gets an easy 1-2-3 inning on a mere 9 pitches as Aviles grounds out back to the pitcher.

It's time to stretch, and I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you all to boycott Winnie the Pooh. That's right folks. As I'm putting my daughter to sleep in her Pujols' pjs and singing our traditional night-night song, "Take me Out to the Ballgame," I switched on her mobile which plays "Winnie the Pooh". To my horror I realized what I had been exposing my daughter to. One of the lines of the song describes Winnie as: "a tubby little cubby!" People, I implore you, don't let this evil slip into your home. Now, back to the game.

With the way he has been pitching and that easy last inning, it's no surprise to see Lohse batting here. And he rewards his manager's confidence with a single.

The other Greene lays down a sac bunt and moves Lohse over a base. This seems to be enough for Hillman to pull the plug on Hochevar--you gotta feel for the guy--no matter who you're rooting for. Looks like Hillman will pull a double-switch and put Mahay and Bloomquist in.

Skippy gets his second hit of the night as the Secret Weapon holds Lohse at 3rd. Callaspo makes a filthy play to rob Rasmus of a hit, but Lohse scores anyway--a nice insurance run to make it a 4-0 lead.

There were rumors that Mahay hates the Cardinal Virtue--now it is confirmed. He obviously is attempting to undermine the blog by intentionally walking Pujols during my assigned inning. Jerkface.

Duncan makes Mahay and Hillman look good by flying out to LF.

The Cards add a run and we had some fun. Now on to the Sabermetrically inclined Fungoes with the 8th! I'm always glad to go BEFORE Pip.

Thanks for tuning in,
-CJ

If you would have told me...

...that the Redbirds were going to get 5 hits I woulda said Eeyore style, "Another Cardinals loss." I certainly wouldn't expect a 3-0 win for the Cardinals. Piñeiro was brilliant. The headline will read 3 hitter complete game shut-out. But almost as impressive--NO WALKS! What a difference that makes compared to the million-man march the Cardinals were getting started!

Rasmus is heating up. 3 HR's in 5 games. For the first time EVER, I am really getting excited about this guy. Now if he can just do something about that OBP .333 and BA .250.

-CJ

I Think...

...that the arm slot is fixed. In other news we lost.
-Cj