Moves

Well Rolen is now on the DL today....and could be done for the year. It's not a HUGE loss on the offensive side of things...but I have a feeling they're really going to miss that glove over at the hot corner.
In related news the Cards have acquired Russell Branyan from the Phillies on Friday. More then likely he'll platoon with Brendan Ryan until/if Rolen comes back.
Mulder is penciled in to start sometime next week with the Cardinals. They will probably go with a 6 man rotation from here on out. Mulder has looked OK in his rehab starts...the biggest test will be tonight when he pitches in AAA.
That last series hurt at least a little bit. It wasn't a huge series loss, but since the Cards actually LOST a game to the Cubs, it hurts. But the trend continued...losing to teams that they SHOULD beat (except against Oswalt..that guy is a ton). But with 5 games left with the Cubs and three with Milwaukee, they've still got a decent shot at winning this thing. Go get 'em boys!!

Yet another huge week

Well the Cardinals have climbed back into the race and it has been in large part due to the pitching staff. Viva El Birdos has a good article about how well the starters have been, and not just for the past few weeks. Just to sum it up the Cardinals pitching staff is tied for the best ERA since June 15th with San Diego. That's a stat that needs to be talked about in regards to the resurgence of this team.
Every Cardinal fan hoped, but few expected that the final month would still be important for this team. In fact the day I heard that Carp was done for the year I myself posted on here that the season was dead. No matter what happens, this season has been better then what most of us thought it would be. And were as most will consider last years team Tony's greatest coaching venture to date....if the Cardinals can make the playoffs this year (just make the playoffs, not win in the playoffs) one could argue that THIS season is his greatest achievement.
This week will prove to be another key week for the Cards as they face, the Astors (who are set to fire their manager and GM this afternoon), Reds, and Pirates. The problem with these teams, is that the Cardinals always seem to lose to the teams they SHOULD beat..and they should be all three of them. Come on boys...keep up your winning ways...and good pitching!!

Newsworthy

verdict is in - Russel is not going to sign with the Cards. and let me just say that i'm really not a fan of this article by jim gordon...i can understand his frustration and it sort of feels like it's a waste, but walt thought things would get done. but cam's right, you can't pay $1.4 million for a 4th rounder...and let's not forget that at least he isn't with another organization this year. that's a small conciliation, but still

on the upside - we're only 4.5 games from the brewers and 3 behind the cubs. i'm still pessimistic, but they're making a real push. we'll see what mulder does in his rehab start.

Signing deadline

Well midnight tonight is the deadline to sign the players drafted in this years first year player draft. If you don't sign them they can go back to school or whatever without much of a penalty to them while the team drafting loses out on the pick. The Cardinals have two picks unsigned including one huge one, Kyle Russell. Russell lead NCAA division one ball last year with 28 HR's, yet he fell to the 4th round. Many people considered him the best "power bat" of this years class, the problem is that he's is THE all or nothing player. He strikes out a ton along with those long balls. He drawn the likeness of Russell Branyon (tons of power but never amounted to much of anything) but also Adam Dunn. The problem right now is that the Cardinals are trying to sign him to (or at least close to) the market price for a 4th rounder, while Russell's camp is trying to sell him as a possible 1st rounder and therefore trying to get him 1st round money (kind of like Brady Quinn). This makes sense...to a point. The guy did lead the Div 1 in HR's last year. The biggest problem with that argument is that Russell did NOTHING in the short leagues that he has played in since being drafted. Granted it was only a small sample size...but he sucked it up until the end.
Either way, supposedly talks haven't developed into anything and Russell has informed some people down there in Texas that he'll be coming back next year. If this is true the Cardinals will probably be getting a lot of grief from their fans....but paying first round money for a fourth round pick is a bit of a stretch...especially when you haven't showed that you can deal with wooden bats. But you'll have those fans out there that will run with this and call Jocketty and company cheap. It's a lose lose situation in some respects. But hey....there's still time!!!

Wow!!!

That was one of those moments that even if your not a Cardinal fan, heck even if your not a baseball fan, that was an amazing moment last night. My wife, who could care less about baseball most of the time, even stopped and watched the story that the local sportscaster did on him. That was a moment that every Cardinal fan had to feel good about. As much grief as fans have given not only him but mostly the front office for sticking with him as long as they have, and as horrible of a season the Cardinals are having right now, that was by far the best moment of the season. And you could see it in that dugout. If you had no idea what was going on, you would have thought the Cardinals had just won a huge playoff game or something. LaRussa was jumping around like he NEVER does during the regular season, and that stadium was going NUTS!!! I mean how crazy is it that the pitching starved Cardinals just got 7 shut out innings from Joel Piniero, and it is nothing more then an afterthought right now. The Cardinals just beat one of the best pitchers in the national league and nobodies talking about it. Like Mike Shannon said last night, this could very well be a HUGE spark for this team. It seems like there is always one game that people can point to and say "Ever since that game...." and if the Cardinals are able to pull of this crazy comeback, this will be that game.
Welcome back to the bigs Rick Ankiel. You have worked so hard to get back to this point....enjoy it!!!

Here he comes!!

According to KSDK in St. Louis, the Cardinals have called up Rick Ankiel. He's been crushing the ball down in Memphis, but is pretty much an all or nothing batter. He was expected to be called up in September when the rosters expanded. But if Frank Cusumano is right, we're going to see him earlier then we expected. If this is true he's gotta stay up the rest of the year or have to clear waivers if he can't handle it. Here we go!!!

Music

This one if for our brother, Jason. A while ago he called up saying he thought it would make for a cool post if we listed the music that the closers came into the game with. Well....this Wikipedia page takes it one step further.

Now to the Cardinals. Who knows what to expect from this team anymore. They beat the Brewers 3 out of 4 including some rather impressive comebacks. Only to follow that up with losing 5 of 6 to the Pirates and Nationals. Only to follow that up with a somewhat decent game on Monday (they really had one good inning (scoring 10 runs in the 5th but getting shut out the other 7 innings). Followed by the offense taking another day off while Anthony Reyes was on the mound. The good news though...the Brewers are showing they haven't really been able to handle the pressure, and the Cubs have fallen apart without Soriano. I still don't think there's much of a chance the Cards make the playoffs. Mulder is at least getting ready to make some rehab starts. But word is is that it will take 4 or 5 starts before he'll MIGHT be ready. That's roughly another 20-25 days. But they are saying (they being the medical staff) that Mulder NEEDS to start this season to get him ready mentally and physically for next year. More of the waiting game for Cardinal fans.

What happens next?

So we didn't move Eck, Juan, or any of our pitchers...our pen is still intact. We'll see what Piniero does for us and if Duncan can resurrect even a shadow of what this pitcher used to be. his arm is conditioned as a relief pitcher, so it will be interesting to see if they dump him into the rotation right away.

Skip was sent down to make room for Piniero - he was batting over .300

Maroth is going to head down for the next month - rumor has it that they'll be asking him back around September.

with the Cubs matching the Brewers for the division and the Cards 6 back...it could be an interesting last couple of months. come one Mulder...you're our Luke Skywalker, our Frodo, our Harry Potter...