By the Iron_Throne

Thanks to my best friend TiVo, I got to see the Cards/Braves game from this morning when I got home from the lab.  I thought I’d do a stream of consciousness post on the game.  I know I’m not as funny as I think, so save the flames for your friendly neighborhood Sox bandwagon jumper.

The announcers can’t stop talking about the World Series.  “Their pitching was exposed…”  “Suppan got one of the losses in the World Series.”  Man, it’s not like they won.

The Braves are bringing out the (almost) opening day lineup, with the exception of Langerhans instead of the brittle Jordan.  The Cards on the other hand are bringing their AAA lineup with the All-Star Outfield (This Time it Doesn’t Count!) of Cedeno, Taguchi, and Schumaker.  Also with Eckstein and Grudz as the DP combination, Einar Diaz behind the plate, and the ever versatile John Mabry at third. Of course two of these things are not like the others.

Echoing the current thoughts on Eck, the announcers are discussing the defense up the middle and Harold Reynolds points out that Eck can handle anything he can get to, but he just doesn’t get to much.  And his rainbow to first ending the top of the first inning seems to be a lot of effort for him.

Diaz short arms a throw to second on a Furcal attempt--anybody else wonder if he can’t hit and he can’t throw, what exactly does Einar Diaz bring to the team besides experience?  “Son, you better listen up, I’ve grounded out in more stadiums than you’ve ever even seen.  I was striking out against major league pitchers when you were striking out in the back of your high school sweetheart’s Camry.”

The Marlins share facilities with the Cardinals down in Jupiter.  It’s got to bother you when the Marlins’ side of the complex has the ’97 and 2003 World Championship banners.

It looks like ESPN has caved to Arte Moreno and are listing Anaheim as LAA.  It took me a second to figure out who that was.

Suppan is working on keeping the ball down, and most of his pitches are coming low in the zone, but the Braves are all going down to try and pull the ball up.  If Soup can keep the ball on the ground, he should have another solid year.  However, not having great stuff and a fastball that tops out at 89 mph, if he leaves the ball up hitters will kill him.

Kruk actually brings up a good point, if a non-citizen like Sosa goes before Congress and admits to breaking the law (taking steroids), can his visa be revoked?  I’m not sure if Congress can officially offer immunity to deportation.

…And of course when Suppan gets the ball up, even little bitty guys like Rafael Furcal can take him deep.

Hey, when did the Braves get Esix Snead?  Wasn’t he in our system a while ago?  Remember the old joke, “He’s the leadoff hitter of the future, and always will be.”

Seriously, Soup has got to keep the ball down.  A much rounder than I remember Andrew Jones jumped all over that meatball.  That’s three homeruns in 2.1 innings.  All of them on fatties above the belt.  

You know, Ankiel at the plate looks like an actual major league hitter, though I didn’t even recognize him at first because he doesn’t have his pants pulled up to show his striped socks.  I don’t think the bluff of Scott Boras telling all the other teams that Rick won’t ever pitch if he’s picked up off waivers is going to work.  Somebody’s going to take a chance on him, and even if Rick sticks to his guns, it will be for another team. The play-by-play man Thorne brings up the interesting idea of signing him to a huge back loaded contract with a gentlemen’s agreement to tear it up as soon as he passes through waivers. 

Man, Adam Wainwright is HUGE!

“You can’t outscore people in this league and win.”

--Tony LaRussa on building a winner

I guess I can’t blame him.  I’ve said worse things under the gun:

--“Officer, there’s no way I was going over 90.” 

--“You know, Boss, I was reading some of your old papers and I think you guys made some mistakes.”

--“Matt Morris.”  …when asked what I was thinking about when a girlfriend wanted to know what I was thinking about when we were cuddling.  Gotta think before you speak, guys.

Thomson for the Braves seems to be making the pitches that Suppan should.  He’s keeping the ball down, and the Cards just can’t seem to go down and get them.  If the Braves want to get their outfielders some defensive work they’re going to need a B game.

The Braves are looking like clown college dropouts on the field; they’ve made three errors already in 4.2 innings, and they had some troubles getting to a lot of the eight billion groundballs that Thomson has given them.  Well I guess since ‘hustle’ has replaced winning as our team focus, all these grounders really give the Cards a chance to shine.

“Some days you’re the windshield, and some days you’re the bug.”  And sometimes Abraham Nunez swings the bat, and sometimes the bat swings him.  Maybe we shouldn’t stop all major leaguers from using steroids, some guys just need more inertial mass to survive. 

Anybody else just like Evan Rust’s motion when he throws?  I can’t tell if it’s three-quarters or what, but it looks like he’s just pushing the ball over the plate. 

In those flashbacks to Mulder’s pitching last season he really looked uncomfortable on the mound.  He looked a little lost; a little hopeless.  I hope he’s healthy and has his head on straight.  We’re 0-fer-1 in fixing our head cases this year already.

From the “if he quacks like a duck…” section, Roger Cedeno looks like an All-Star, he swings like an All-Star, he’s paid like an All-Star, but he sure hits like a duck.

…but Esix Snead hits like a duck and fields like Andruw Jones is supposed to.

So apparently Bill Pulsipher is in the lead for one of the last bullpen spots according to Ray King because he has the trait that made Steve Kline good:  he’s kind of nutty.  He’s second on the team to only Julian Tavarez in NORP (Nuttiness Over Replacement).  If he’s left-handed like Kline, and he acts like Kline….

The MLB 2K5 Official St. Louis Cardinals Projected Opening Day Lineup has Grudz batting second, Larry Walker in the seven hole, and Mark Mulder pitching on Opening Day.  Do these guys even do any research on what they sponsor?  I know it’s not a big deal, but there is some ad exec somewhere who passed this assignment to Skippy the Summer Intern and made his company look kind of stupid.  Because, see, it’s a game about baseball, right….

Bo Hart is batting with the bases loaded and nobody out in the ninth, down by four.  A hit here could make a good impression…

…and he strikes out swinging for the fences.  I wasn’t aware they’d moved the fences in to 300 feet. 

So the Cardinals go down 5-1 in the first game I’ve seen since Game 4, and Jeff Suppan makes me nervous…John Mabry makes me happy…David Eckstein makes me jealous…Rick Ankiel makes me sad…Albert Pujols makes me giddy…John Kruk makes me wish I was deaf…ellipses make me a good writer….