Extended weekend wrapup

hey, so again, long time no blog…Its been tough because of all the papers, studying, finals coming up and getting ready to graduate and then  start research and then head to grad school…a lot of stuff going on. now, let’s get to the cards; lots going on and I will not stop if I start so lets do this bullet point style:

• the cardinals lost yesterday to the reds, 4-3. arroyo pitched a decent game, a quality start; 6 innings and 3 earned runs. he is really a decent pitcher that’s not faired well the last two seasons in his home park because its very hitter friendly. if he was on the cardinals, he’d be real good. on the plus side, Ank hit is fifth of the season; it was a solo shot.
• turns out, babyface will not be sent to the minors but put on the dl because they say he has right elbow inflammation. whatever that means…hopefully its nothing serious but I beg to differ with the cards medical staff.
• tony keeps doing what he’s been doing all his career, that is, going against the grain. ludwick hit leadoff last night, it did not work out so well because lud went 0 for 5 with 4 k’s…that’s just one night though. too small of a sample size.
• our old friend, walt jocketty became the gm of the cincy reds. is anyone really surprised? I expected him to eventually end up as the gm whether it was sooner or later. anyways, I’m sincerely happy for walt and I wish him the best of luck.
• one of the most beloved recent cardinals, matty mo, was released a couple of days ago. its sad to see since the guy is only 33. seems like his arm is really tired, I hope its not the end of the road for him, its said that he will probably retire. If I was the cards, I give ol’ matty a minor league deal and send him to memphis to see what he still got. it wont hurt and if he is any good, bring him up! give morris one more shot, for old times sake!
• finally, great baseball against the ’stros last weekend with a lot of intrigue and really close games. glaus finally hit his first homer of the season. it got really heated a couple of times in teh series due to scuffles and bench clearings because of people throwing at people. the worst one was when backe basically threw at molina’s head. I kind of like it as long as no one gets hurt. it gives the rivalry more intrigue. I don’t know about you, but I think the cardinals’ real rivals in this division are the astros. ever since the 2004 and 2005 nlcs’s, its been great to watch these two teams duke it out. its almost always competitive baseball and great pitching duels or slugfest and the games are always toe to toe. the cubs are the old rivals, but I think it really has lost its zest because of winning big by either team or the cardinals/cubs being basically noncompetitors at times.

 

that’s it, hoepfully it won’t be too long before I post again. should be back to full force by middle of april; graduation is on may 17th!

Special game thread: friday the 25th of April

Looper
3-1, 5.49vs.
Chacon
0-0, 2.77

looper started out hot, collecting three wins but his last time out he got rocketed. he got lit up for seven runs in his last start. hopefully, he will rebound and pitch a good game.

chacon has pitched pretty well this season, at least result and era wise. he has pitched 26 innings, walked 11 and struck out 14. that does not look like a good bb/k ratio. he is not this good, someone will figure him out and pound him sooner or later…hopefully it’ll be the cardinals.

lineups:
houston- matsui, erstad, tejada, berkman, lee, blum, pence, towles, chacon.
St. Louis- schumaker, ankiel, pujols, duncan, glaus, kennedy, molina, looper and ryan.

tony loaded up on the lefties tonight against chacon. he must know something…lefties must hit this guy pretty hard. ok, thats it for the game thread; go cards!

Cardinals earn a gritty win

great game yesterday; it was what one would expect from two young teams with potentially great players, I’m more so talking about the brewers at this point but the cardinals are not far behind.

it did not look like it was going to be a pitching duel until the 4th or fifth inning because the runs for both team really came pretty early in the game. waino did not have his best stuff, but he battled and kept the cards in the game all day; that’s what an ace can do.

glaus missed a homer by like 5 inches in the first yesterday, man I really wanted him to get that homer and get the monkey off of his back for this season.

the kid with the dreads, barton, came through again last night. he has fit nicely into the outfield and seemed to have embraced the pinchhitting role tony has molded for him. he doubled to lead off the ninth and set up the scoring of the forth and winning run. skip . izzy closed the game. so, cards win a tough one, 4 to 3.

it appears that mulder is on a different schedule for recovery than we all thought. the general thought was that mulder gets 4 to 5 minor league starts and if all goes will he comes back to the majors. tlr says that muldoo needs to stay down there for the full 30 days of rehab and get about 10 starts before facing major league hitters.

I have to side with tony on this one. I don’t really want to get my hopes up. mulder needs to get as much work as possible before coming back to the big show. if that means the full rehab time, then so be it. besides, once he is up, he can’t go back down. he will be stuck, so might as well use all options available before activating him from the dl.

today’s game will be at 12:05 central time; the second of a two game series, lohse vs. parra.

let’s go cards!

Round two with the Brew Crew

at least the cards got that out of the way right?

they lost their first series of the season to the giants, losing 2 out of three; they also lost the season series with them 3-4. yesterday’s game was particularly bad because looper just got bombed! reyes did a nice job cleaning up the mess by pitching three innings and giving up one run.

mulder’s second rehab start seemed like it went well. he pitched six hits allowing three hits and walking three; he allowed no runs.

the roster move that was bound to happen occurred, but not the one you would expect. I really thought either thompson or reyes were going to be sent down (leaned more toward reyes because of everything thats happened). I guess that want to delay brendan ryan’s 2008 season debut; they sent done uncle rico washington and activated russ springer. doesnt that make them one bench player short?

next, the cards will play the brewers at miller park/field/dome/or whatever they call it. the matchups really favor the cards; tonight’s game will be wainwright vs. villanueva and tuesday it’ll be lohse vs. parra. so the cardinals really has a great advantage over the brewers; plus, gagne has been a hot mess by blowing three save chances already this season. seems like they signed him and maybe were expecting the gagne of old and not the one that exists today.

Bueno Waino

(AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

adam wainwright was really dealing last night! another great start from bueno waino which translated into a win; now the cards will go for the series sweep tonight.

adam pitched 7 2/3 innings last night; 6 k’s, 2 bb’s, 5 hits and one earned run; terrific stuff. it looked like he had some extra giddyup on his fastball also. also, izzy recorded the save; can you believe it? he’s already got six saves on this young season. check out the boxscore.

the wagonmaker also hit his first homer of the season, a solo shot, in the 2nd inning off of villanueva. skip also homered, but his bomb was disputed because it was not apparent at first that it left the park. the umpires got it right though; the replay clearly showed that the ball had hit the ad sign a couple of feet above the yellow line. skip went 2 for 4 on the day. I gotta say I’m really pleasantly surprised with skip; he has hit well, for some power, swiped a couple of bags and been a lot more patient as a hitter so far this season. it seems to me like he has improved his whole game. he made an error last night though when he misplayed a base hit that caused the runners to advance to 2nd and 3rd base; an unearned run scored as a result. over all, the whole outfield has really contributed to this teams hot starts.

duncan seems to have gotten into the swing of things the last couple of games; his bat is coming to life. ankiel has cooled off  lately. prince albert tomahawked a 3-0 pitch down the line yesterday for a 2 run double; he has 10 rbis on the season. cards win what became a tight game late, 5 to 4.

today, the cards play the final game of this three game series and they will be going for the sweep. it’s a noon game; 12:15 central time start. kyle lohse will get the nod against lefty manny parra. I’m thinking barton will start in this game and miles might replace kennedy at 2nd. mr. leach’s preview of the game is up. let’s get that sweep; go cards!

quick review and preview

let’s do this, bullet point style:

• cards won last night, 6-1 because of contributions from the whole team. looper pitched a decent five innings, walking five but only allowing one run.
• mcclellan sure was good too.
• adam kennedy went 3 for 4 with one rbi. skip schumaker went 2 for 4 with two rbis. contributions from guys up and down the lineup.
• the resurgent and electric “powerpitcher”, mr. anthony reyes was real good last night…I mean real good. I think all he threw was 4-seam fastballs. most of them clocked at 93-94 mph…during that last at bat against counsell, he threw a bunch that were right around 95-96 mph…very encouraging to see that he got some of that lost velocity back!
• tonight, its wainer vs. villanueva; 7:15 central start time
• the brew crew signed good ol’ dream weaver to a minor league deal. great deal for them, all reward and no risk.

Cards get set to play division contenders

vs.

that was a decent, but not a great roadtrip. I’ve always heard that you can tell a team’s good if they can win most (or 2/3) at home and split on the road; that’s what the cardinals have done so far this season. granted, its really still too early to tell how good (or bad) they are going to be.

it gets harder though; potentially a lot harder. the cardinals will play the brewers for a three game series starting tonigt; then, they get the giants again with their nice young and talented rotation.

the cards starting pitching might actually see an offense that is actually can hit and is getting it done a little bit; beware though, it has not really been clicking on all cylinders. my number one draft pick, prince fielder, has really been slumping this season and its really put me behind the eightball in my fantasy league, but I keep telling myself that the season just started and there is still a long way to go. also, jj hardy among others is not hitting as well, but he eventually will. on the other hand, guys like weeks and billy hall have really been on a tear as of late. so, these three games are going to be a test to the pitching staff.

what the cardinals got going for them is that they will be facing the back of the brewers rotation in bush (tonight), villanueva (manyana) and parra (thursday). respectively, the cards are sending to the hill looper, wainwright and lohse. if the starting pitching holds up and the offense does what it is capable of doing against average starters at best, it looks like the cardinals can take two out of three games from the brew crew.

piniero made his 2008 debut and it was not a pretty one. yeah, he pitched 3.2 innings, giving up a homer, ten hits and six runs. not so good; he says he is healthy and ready to go, I guess we’ll see how he does next time and maybe he can prove his claims are true.

that’s it for now; let’s go card!

Cards soaring early in season

yeah, so…I have not posted in a while. real life seems to get in the way somehow. just to let you know, I’ve been busy trying to graduate from college, doing papers, presentation, trying to find a job, applying to grad school…you know, those sorts of things. they seem to have taken most of my time the last month or so. let’s get back to the cards.

off to a great start huh? 7-2 and counting. took the series against the struggling rox, swept the pittiful nats and took two out of three from the not so good ’stros. I mean, you gotta give the cards credit, but the teams that they have played so far will not be close to contention anytime this season.

I do not expect looper, wellemeyer and thompson to keep pitching like they have been because they are just not that good. I think this especially applies to wellemeyer because of his horrible control on any given night; this results in a high amount of walks (usually). he has been pretty lucky in the time he was been with the cards because his bad peripherals have not translated into getting pounded; luck usually runs out at one point or another though.

in regards to looper and thompson. they are what they are, #5 starters. both use the sinker as their bread and butter pitch, and when it does not sink and start throwing it high in the zone, they get destroyed usually. so, not expecting much.

joel pineiro has declared himself ready to join the rotation; he should be a slight upgrade over the three converted relievers. tlr has not made his decision though and babyface is still listed to be the cards started against san fran on sunday; that might change though.

also, if you have noticed, the cardinals play seven of their next ten games against a really bad team; the san francisco giants. they have a 3-6 record. so, they win at a clip of one game a series. if they can take advantage of the gaints, then they can tread water and actual hope of possible contention until the mulder/clemente/carpenter (cross your fingers) comes back and pitches good enough to pitch the cardinals into contention.

pujols finally went deep…two fold. yes, a two homer day for the big guy last night, and the cardinals win the game and take the series from the ’stros. also, reyes really pitched good against houston the other night. he threw three scoreless innings and it only took him 38 pitches. aside from that two run homer he gave up, he has pitched pretty well. I think what he was saying in s.t. has really shown; he has really thrown very few balls and a lot of strikes and gotten counts in his favor by throwing strikes early and often. he gets hitters 0-1 and 0-2/1-2 in counts and then throws them pitches and gets them to chase; they get themselves out. if he keeps this up, he can really help this club. also, coming out of them has really caused an increase in the velocity of his fastball. it is now being clocked at 94 mph regularly. I guess that comes from knowing you are only out their to pitch a couple of innings instead of throwing 6+ innings as one is usually required to as a starter.

let’s end this post in an optimistic fashion; go cards!

cards take series from rox

for the second straight game, the starter pitched good and so did the bullpen; result…win. as long as this team puts up a couple of runs a game and most importantly, the starter is solid, this team might surpise some people. of course, I think this team might be a little to dependent on the long ball and might strike out a lot with glaus, duncan, ankiel and ludwick in the lineup.

a win is a win right? yesterday’s was a good one; the cardinals won 3-0. thompson was going good because he had his bread and butter pitch, the sinker, working good and he was locating pretty much all his pitches.

my boy–anthony reyes– struck out the side, spilborghs, tulowitzki and helton in the 8th inning. he got up to three balls on spilborghs, but he pulled it out and got him. then, he did not have a problem K’ing the other two. that’s what I’m talking about. this might be a little premature, but if this works out and franklin blows up, why not make reyes izzy’s setup man? they keep saying he does not have an out pitch; well, he has two good pitches, why not give him a shot in the ‘pen? just a wild thought.

guess who is starting today for the nationals? our old friend, who seems to be changing teams every season now, odalis perez. yes, I remember that fond october night when  mr. perez was the dodgers starter in that wonderful series against the dodgers. even lima time couldnt stop pujols and cards. good times…good times…

well, mr. pujols owns odalis to the tune of 13 for 20, five bombs and two doubles and seven walks. pretty damn good if I do say so myself.

looper is pitching against perez, let’s hope he can keep up with the performances of the other starters. game preview here.

Cards collect first win

well, its was a good thing they won yesterday because they might not even get today’s game in because of rain again. its been really bad in the stl, we have been getting hosed with rain for the last few weeks now and everytime it rains flood warnings are issued for many counties in the area, roads get flooded and it just becomes a big mess.

 ludwick, pujols and ankiel were the three headed offensive monster last night, collecting eight of the team’s eleven hits. ludwick and ankiel each had three while pujols had two. these three men also had five of the cards eight rbis yesterday; three by ludwick and one by each pujols and ankiel.  ankiel had an all around terrific game, making a great catch in center and connecting for his first homer of the season (a solo shot).

uncle rico got his first hit yesterday, in his second major league at bat. it was a double and with it he also drove in a run, another milestone for rico; his first major league rbi. adam kennedy got a hit and officially has a hitting streak of two games. nice!

wellemeyer was decent, going five innings and allowing one run. one of these days his peripherals will catch up to him like his walks and homers. he walked three guys and allowed a solo shot to hawpe. franklin struggled again; he pitched 2/3 of an inning giving up two hits in one run. cards win 8-3! here is the boxscore and summary for the game.

today’s game starts at 12:15 central time and some weather guys are reporting that we might have a break in the rain system midday, so they might get this game in.

if it happens, it’ll be babyface thompson vs. the righthanded fireballer, ubaldo jimenez. game preview is here.