Cardinals Struggles Continue

Cards get one run as Jeff Suppan pitched a complete game on the last day of April - it was his first since July28, 2003 for the Cardinals. The Brewers went to 16-9 and are looking like a solid team throught the first month of baseball.

Here's an interesting fact - the Cardinal's have the worst OBP in right field in all of majors and are 27th overall in Center field.

Wells picked up his fifth loss and raised his ERA to 5.65

Cardinal Nation Mourns

Josh Hancock, 29, was killed in a car accident early Sunday morning in St. Louis. His Explorer ran into the rear end of a stopped tow truck. He died at the scene.

After joining the Cardinals in 2006, Hancock had pitched a 4.05 ERA last season and posted a 3.55 ERA through yesterday, when he pitched 3 innings in relief of Reyes.

The Associated Press interviewed Jason Isringhausen and reported that,

"Three days before his death, the Cardinals got a scare that some teammates said reminded them of Kile's death -- Hancock overslept and showed up late for a day game in St. Louis. Hancock told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he thought the starting time was later and didn't get up until the "20th call" from anxious teammates.
'We were all a little nervous,' closer Jason Isringausen said earlier this week. 'We don't care if you're late. That happens. We want to know that you're OK.' "

Tonight's game against the Cubs has been postponed.

Improvements

So our offense if finally beginning to click. Pujols is getting more hits and starting to add some home runs to the stats. Rolen is hitting well and Duncan seems to be finding his hits (in spite of missing a start because he hit his head while skipping some stairs while leaving his apartment...dumb ol' dunc). even izzy is starting to pitch some solid innings.

carp is looking to try to get back onto the mound on saturday. we'll see how his elbow feels after making some throws.

Braden Looper - Dave Duncan, you are a genius (for now).

Dreaming again!!!!!

There has been one player in particular that I have long dreamed of having on the Cardinals roster, knowing full well that they would never be able to A: trade for him or B: afford him. Miguel Cabrera has mentioned in this article, that IF he were traded, that he would like to play with his "hero." There are some good one two punches in baseball, A-Rod and Jeter, A-Ram and D-Lee, Big Papi and Manny. But if my dream were to ever come true, it would make them the most feared tandem in baseball. Not just because their talent would exceed any of the others, but because they are both fairly young (Pujols at 27 and Cabrera at 24). It would take a ton to get Cabrera away from Florida, and a ton the Cardinals don't have. And if going to demand to stick with playing the hot corner that could cause a problem too...unless Rolen was included in the deal. They have also said several times that he is the player they want to build around which would make it seem like they would probably ask for our whole farm system. However, the Marlins biggest problem is that by next year he could be making up to half of that teams payroll. Only time will tell if Cabrera actually gets traded. And I know that Cabrera has been a dream of Walt's too....so I'm sure that if he hits the market the Cardinals will at least TRY to pick him up. Try being the key word there!

Rings and Cubs

In case you weren't able to go to the April 3rd game, you can always go and grab this beauty for a cool $3,750!!!! A nice addition to any Cardinal fans collection.
Meanwhile, Prior is going back under the knife. This is supposed to be just an "exploratory surgery" but could turn into something more if they find something that needs fixed. Don't think this will affect ANYBODIES fantasy team but I'm sure it further sours the opinion most Cub fans have of him right now. The Cubs also put Wade Miller on the DL due to back spasms. Usually someone doesn't go on the DL for back spasms, especially since Miller just pitched on Sunday. Makes me wonder if there isn't something more going on here. On a positive note for the Cubs, Rich Hill has been phenomenal so far this year. This can't continue but the guy has a 3-0 record with a minuscule .41 ERA. He's a guy I was hoping would fly under the radar during my drafts that I could pick up cheap....but I guess others had their eye on him too. If he's a free agent in your league pick him up. Like I said he won't continue these numbers but at least should be a solid pitcher....as long as he stays away from Prior and Wood.

Can we keep the momentum?

Finally, some offense. rolen went 4-5 and was a double away from the cycle. pujols had a three-run homerun to put the game away. duncan continues to find hits. and we walk away with a 12-9 win over the cubs and take the series in spite of izzy. just like last year, our offense comes on when our pitching is atrocious. rolen, pujols, edmonds, and duncan all homered. pujols pulled his BA up to .229 while rolen has his up to .268...keep it going guys!

we could have used some better defense in right field today spezio made a few mistakes and wilson couldn't quite make it to a bloop single by derosa that nearly lost the game for us. adam kennedy made a serious baserunning mistake and was picked off at first - luckily we were able to put a couple of runs on the board that inning. la russa was visibly upset with the baserunning of kennedy.

soriano chipped in for the cubs and had a pinch-hit double.

i never thought i'd be so excited to see that encarnacion is nearing his return. hi has a pair of homeruns during a couple of in 3 extended spring training games in florida.

word is that Chris Carpenter will begin his first throwing session on Tuesday. let's keep our fingers crossed on this one.


Bring on Harang

Can we get some help?!

That's gotta be what the pitchers are thinking right now. Heck, Wells was our only offense yesterday as he scored the only two runs the Cards had against yet another young lefty. Then today as the game heads into the bottom of the 3rd against the Cubs, the Cards have three hits, one of them coming from LOOPER!! I guess one could always be happy with the fact that Pujols is finally above the Mendoza line.
But as I sit here looking at game day, outside of Duncan the best batting average in the starting line up is .250 from Yadi....250!!!!. That's nothing short of ridiculous. I never thought I would be almost joyous to hear Juancion is back on the field....in fact he hit a HR in his debut last night. Like I said in my post a few days ago...something has to be done. You can't win games when you have one starter hitting over .250!! Let's hope the Cards start the season series against the Cubs better then they did last year. And the Cards get their first crack at Marquis tomorrow...maybe that will be the ticket to get the bats back into things!!!

Spring Weather Woes

the cold weather has brought on some slumps and injuries in some of major league baseball's finest athletes. we all know about chris carpenter, but here's a list of some others either on the DL or severely slumping (in no particular order):

BJ Ryan - DL for 4-6 weeks (elbow)
Albert Pujols - batting .160
Lance Berkman - batting .184
Jason Schmidt - DL
Mark Teixeira - batting .217
Scott Podsednick - DL
Troy Glaus - DL
Manny Ramirez - batting .205
Mike Mussina - DL
Hideki Matsui - DL
Ramon Hernandez - DL
Ryan Howard - batting .238 and one dinger
Scott Rolen - batting .211
Nick Johnson - DL

this is just a quick list. feel free to add to leave some comments and add to the list.

Who is at fault here?

The offense is horrible right now. They haven't been able to hit left handed pitching for the past few years, let alone a young lefty pitcher like they faced today against the Pirates. You have to give the Pirates credit. Their starting pitchers have looked decent this year, especially Ian Snell and Tom Gorzelanny. They also took advantage of mistakes by the Cardinal pitchers and defense, something that the Pirates seemingly haven't been able to do in the past few years.
With that said the Cardinal offense has self-destructed the whole year. They've hit into some 18 double plays already this year, hitting into three today. The hitters have been extremely anxious at the plate, and perhaps none more so then Pujols. Cardinal fans know that the offense isn't this bad. But with the struggles that the offense has had the past few years, I wonder how effective of a hitting coach that Hal McRae has been. A lot of things have changed since the power filled 2004 lineup. Larry Walker and Reggie Sanders are no longer with the team, Rolen and Edmonds have both suffered big injuries. You can't put sole blame on him, but it makes one wonder why such the drastic change since McRae has taken over. It will always boil down to the players being the ones that actually takes the swings. But it is the job of the hitting coach to fix problems with the swing of his players among other things. Would the Cardinals be just in dumping McRae this early in the season? In my mind it has to at least be considered. You hate to see a coach take the fall when the players are struggling. Something has to be done though and that might be the cheapest and easiest solution. How 'bout some talk on this. What do you guys think???

Suppan gets his ring

If there is one player from last years team that will be missed more, it's Jeff Suppan. Not only is he a good middle to end of the rotation guy, he's just a great all around guy. It was nice to see him get a warm welcome by his old team on Friday night.
Suppan did a great job while with the Cardinals, and he won some huge playoff games for us. With that said, I don't know that he is worth the 4 years $42 mil that the Brewers gave him. It'll be interesting to watch him this year to see how he fares with an defense behind him that isn't nearly as good at the Cardinals. Either way....best of luck to ya Supp!!

On a side note, Pujols finally had a decent game yesterday going 2-5 with 2 HR's and 5 RBI!!! Keep it up buddy we need ya.
Which brings us to yet another side note, is Chris Duncan for real?!?! I'm still going to have to say no for right now simply because he's not very good against lefties. But for crying out loud he's having himself a pretty solid season up to this point. Again....keep it up buddy, we need ya!!!

It's All in the Numbers

As it stands right now, the Card's are producing just 2.89 runs per game and relying heavily on what was supposed to be a very questionable pitching staff. as i look around the web and through different articles, everyone is talking about our pitching and trying their hardest ignore the fact that Albert Pujols is hitting just .176 with one homerun in 34 at-bats, meanwhile Chris Duncan is batting .320 with two homeruns in 25 at-bats and getting us out of 9th inning jams and helping us sweep a young and eager Pirates team.

i'm still wondering what's going to happen before the trade deadline. even with Carpenter on the DL and a serious question at least for the next 2 weeks, possibly 2-3 months if he needs surgery...i'm thinking we might need to find some offense somewhere. this isn't the only time we'll have rolen out and pujols struggling and we have to be able to survive and produce when those guys are injured or slumping and we can't always count on Edmonds to pick up the slack.

right now we are batting right at .272, which is where we typically have hovered at each year since 2001. we batted .278 during 2004, but if we can continue to stay around .270 and bring some more runs home instead of hit into DP's, i think we'll be in decent shape...especially when you compare it to the fact that the Astros batting average over the last seven years has been around .257 and the Cubs sit around .263

Rolen Sits and Carp on DL

Scott Spiezio took Rolen's place at third as he was scratched just 2 hours before the first pitch due to back spasms. Rolen said he tried heat and ice on his back, but never could get it loose before the game and with the cold temperatures, he decided to sit this one out and get ready for the series finale. Spiezio had a game-tying single to bring in Eckstein and Duncan.

Carpenter has been diagnosed with "moderate arthritis and a mild impingement" in his right elbow. They are hoping that they can give him a couple weeks to rest and get him back on the mound, but if rest doesn't take care of the situation they there could be a possibility of season-ending surgery. Randy Kiesler threw a solid outing against the Pirates.

Keisler named as starter for Tuesday

Randy Keisler has been named the starter against the Pirates on Tuesday. Keisler will be taking Carpenters spot in the rotation, at least for now. This means that Carp will likely be heading to the DL, retroactive to his last start back on opening night. We'll post any news on Carp as it comes in.

Edit: Kinda vague for now Carpenter has arthritis and a mild elbow "impingement" Not sure if this should make us feel better or not. So he'll just have to rest and have some therapy for a few days. He'll be put on the DL.

Carpenter Update

He's still feeling some discomfort. After being scheduled to start on Tuesday, La Russa announced that Carpenter will sit out another start.

After throwing a couple off a mound and flat ground, Carp did look good, but informed La Russa that he was still a little sore when he got to Minute Maid park. Evidently there is still some swelling in the elbow as well and La Russa and Paletta will discuss all scenarios, including a possibility of moving Carpenter to the DL.

The good news from today as the Kip Wells is looking very solid after his second start and his first Cardinal win of the season. He pitched a one-hit, no-run seven innings against the Astros. The 29-year old right hander looks healthy and poised to have a solid year under Duncan's direction.

No longer at the bottom

the Card's racked up their first win of the season. Waintwright had the best outing of any starter and allowed just one run on five hits. he also had a double to drive in taguchi in the third inning.

chris duncan went 3 for 4 including a two-run homerun in the third inning and an rbi ground rule double.

if there was any bad news for the day, it was that despite picking up a save, izzy did allow a run.

next step - let's get carp back in the rotation and hope that reyes can stave off oswalt and get us another win.

New Logo

credit to Chad Gramling for putting together a nice little title logo and that add to his blog. check out his site at CGBB.

we'll be putting together a Cardinal outlook for view both on our site as well as Chad's. it's a great site to get some fan info on many different major league teams.

thanks again, Chad!!

We really are better than this...

Carpenter has said that he plans to make his next start on Tuesday. Let's hope Wainy can get us our first W and put the Astros down to the bottom of the heap.

in response to the media's questions of our quiet bats, La Russa just kept saying, "We're better than this."

he's right. we'll come around. the mets gave us a struggle throughout spring training as well, but i just keep telling myself that in a rivalry, one team typically takes the wins during the season and then the other team wins when it matters.

The Cardinals became the first defending world champions to start a season 0-3 since the Baltimore Orioles of 1984 who started out 0-4.

Cardinal Woes

Although Looper gave up three runs, he pitched well. He was able to locate his pitches and throw with some authority. Josh Hancock pitched 2/3 of an inning and gave up two home runs.

Let's hope Carp can get back in the lineup soon because we need all the defense we can get while our bats are absolutely silent and hitting into double-plays just about every other inning. Izzy looked sharp in his first inning of work this season.

But at least we have Jimmy Edmonds playing everyday and Duncan making some good plays in the outfield and had a hit in an otherwise quiet night. Too bad Preston Wilson can't say the same - he misjudged a couple of hits, one of which led to two more runs.

Fantasy News after Day Two

Rumor has it that Carpenter had some inflammation in his elbow and will sit out his next start.


Wells had a solid outing in the first 5 innings and then began to struggled a bit in the sixth, but the Birds are having a hard time putting some runs on the board. Duncan actually had a catch in the sixth inning.


Miguel Cabrera tacked on another couple of hits for the Marlins who have really poured on some offense to begin the season. Barry Zito has already started to prove that he was overpaid as he took a loss in his first outing. Ben Sheets already wrung up a complete game on day one. And our old boy, Edgar Renteria hit two homeruns on Monday.

My take on Yadier Molina - he hits .258

There were some good things last night!!!

So....not the best way you want to start out the season as World Champs. Didn't get to see the whole game, in fact we missed most of Carpenter's struggles. I will say though from what I saw, that ump was pinching him pretty good there in the 6 inning, only to get pretty liberal once both starters were out.
A few things we found out last night. Carp still has some work to do, but at least the bullpen looked pretty solid....except for babyface. So Tag should NOT be on the major league roster. I totally understand loyalty, I really do. But there were times LAST year when he looked just as bad as Duncan, then last night took a bad route to the ball Delgado hit (not sure he would have caught it anyway) that made him look bad, then that fairly routine line drive that hit off the heal that "got lost in the lights."
After a spring where the bats were pretty quite, it was nice to see the boys put 10 hits on the board. Both Yadi and Eck had good nights at the plate (I'm saying it now, Yadi will at least hit .260 this year....maybe even .270). Twice we had the bases loaded, but just couldn't get it past that in field. That play Joey V. made on Rolen was pretty slick, and that throw by Reyes may have been better.
Either way, it's early. 161 games left so.....plenty of time left to straighten things out.
Get to go to game #2 so I'll give an update on Wednesday...as long as the rain stays away. If you were at the game last night please leave some comments about the game. Even if you watched it...leave comments.