Yadier Molina drew a walk! And it was against a pitcher with talent too. Now he need another so his OBP exceeds his batting average.

Of course it was a good night overall offensively. While some of the bloopers fell in, there also were some hard-hit outs and unofficially Monday night's game had more "good rip" foul balls back to the screen than any other game this season. I'm always on the lookout for an explanation of why people who matter swear by Tony LaRussa. I mean, Bernie Miklasz has declared Bill DeWitt's an evil miser, and yet he's willing to pay millions for LaRussa's managerial services. Oliver Perez evidently is healthy, so is part of the explanation for his demise his management? Can the Pirates not field a popup to the mound because of management?

* * * * *

I caught a game at Fort Wayne over the weekend. The park in Fort Wayne is not a favorite of mine, as it has all the charm of a concrete bunker. However the Cardinals A-ball affiliate from Quad Cities was visiting, so I checked out a few of the Cardinals' lower level prospects. The executive summary was there's nothing exciting to report.

First, the pitchers from Sunday's game all had trouble throwing strikes. You may heard that the minor leagues currently have replacement umps working the games, but I don't think that was the problem. The starter, Cory Meacham, fell apart in the fourth, walking three straight and then hitting a batter. It wasn't easy to watch.

Colby Rasmus, the Cardinals' #2 prospect according to Baseball America, looks like a 19-year-old kid, maybe because he is. I took some pictures, but they don't convey how thin he is relative to the other Cardinals that played on Sunday. My first instinct is to compare him to Jason Tyner, which Rasmus made silly by homering on Monday night. He's going to need a few years and his numbers may under-estimate his long-term ability.

AJ Van Slyke went 0-for-5 and, as you'd expect, didn't look good doing it. He looks like he might be a little thick in the midsection actually. Bryan Anderson is a highly regarded catching prospect, and he looked fine behind the plate, in spite of a couple of problems with popups. Randy Roth's defense at 3B looked Mabryesque, but he homered on one of the hardest line drives I've seen in the minors. When I started writing this up, I realized I should've paid more attention to Dan Nelson, the shortstop for Quad Cities. He's not on any prospect lists and he's hitting .200 right now, but he had decent OBPs in 2004 and 2005, he's still young enough (22) to improve and he looked like a legit ballplayer. Maybe I've seen a few too many erratic shortstops in the Midwest League.

The bad guys, the Fort Wayne Wizards, did leave a few impressions. Josh Alley, Sunday's center fielder, had some significant problems judging flyballs. While it was a windy day, the Baby Birds had a couple extra bases hits that I think most center fielders turn into outs, even at A-ball. Kyle Blanks is 6-6 and close to 300 pounds. He could use some time on the stair master (does anybody still use stair masters?), although he's reasonably agile and he's not a pig. It also seemed to me both sides were more keen on working the count than when I first started going to Midwest League games five years ago.