LaRussa Goes Crazy, Lets Molina Swing Away

Tony had a fit of temporary insanity and, for the first time in 3 days, allowed Yadier Molina to swing away with a runner on base.

LaRussa's recent pattern of "showing confidence" in Molina by not allowing him to swing the bat with runners on has not gone well, especially in yesterday's game in which Molina popped up into a DP on a suicide squeeze. If LaRussa's intent is to take pressure off the struggling young hitter by allowing him to try and execute a bunt to enhance his self esteem because he has "contributed," then he is, in this unlicensed psychoanalyst's opinion, seriously misguided.

The best thing LaRussa can do to relax Molina is to treat him no differently than any other hitter. Let the pitcher bunt with runners on; Molina, who hits in front of the pitcher, should always be swinging away unless it's a close game late. By treating Molina differently, LaRussa is telling him, "something is wrong," or "I don't hink you can handle the everyday big-league task of hitting." It's one thing if it's a do-or-die situation, say, in the postseason, where maybe you pinch-hit if you have to. We're talking about the 1st inning of a game in April.

The last time LaRussa tried to "protect" a young player by treating him differently than he'd treat a "normal" major league player---when he didn't think Rick Ankiel could handle the press conference before Game 1 of the 2001 NLDS and told the media that, no, Darryl Kile would actually be the starter---that player responded by imploding.

Perhaps Tony should let Molina do what hitters do---hit---and pinch-hit for him or rest him when the situation calls for it, the way he does for every other hitter on the team. By treating Molina as if he needs to be treated differently LaRussa is only drawing attention to the kid and adding to the pressure he must already feel and making him question whether he really belongs.

Oh, and by the way, when Yadier swung away he roped a double to right to drive in Grudz. Gee---maybe Tony knows what he's doing after all.

Staff goes Deep, adds Jarvis

Newest Cardinal Kevin Jarvis gets an opportunity to show that his performance in AAA Memphis so far this year---0.78 era and 20 Ks in 23 innings over four starts---is for real and he has transformed himself from the pitcher who wore out his welcome for four different organizations in 2004 (Padres, Mariners, Rockies, Pirates) into a reliable middle reliever who can be counted on to eat some innings when called upon during one of the team's busiest stretches of the 2005 season.

The righthanded Jarvis (pictured above in an editorial cartoon posted by a Mariners' fan to commemorate his release last May 4) was the last pitcher cut in spring training, losing out to lefty Bill Pulsipher, and accepted an assignment to Memphis, where he's been, apparently, nothing short of dazzling. As the Cardinals are in the early stages of a run of something like 21 straight games without a day off, adding an extra pitcher to the roster to replace the languishing Hector Luna makes sense.

But who exactly are the Cardinals getting here: the crafy veteran who has flummoxed PCL hitters for three weeks, or the guy who pitches like a guy who's compiled a 5.93 career ERA in 750 innings?

Somehow, I have a hard time believing that Kevin Jarvis v.2005 is much different than the pitcher who has been knocked around more over the last 10 years than just about any other pitcher out there. His career ERA+ of just 74 has got to be among the lowest of our era for a pitcher who's survived as long as he has. In fact, the peak of Jarvis's career came in 2000-2002, when he reeled off ERA+'s of 100, 84 and 88, and his next-best season was in 1995, when he had a 5.70 era (ERA+ of 72).

Jarvis has to have one of the highest home run rates of any pitcher ever, assuming a minimum number of innings (say, 500). I don't have career-rate numbers, but Jarvis has averaged 39 homers allowed per 200 innings pitched over his career. Now, in the history of baseball, a pitcher has allowed more than 39 homers in a season 21 times.

Some of his corkers include 1997 (17 homers allowed in 68 innings); 1999 (6 in 14 innings); 2000 (26 in 115 innings, but in his defense that year, half his games were at Coors Field); 2001 (37 in 193.1 innings); and last year (5 homers in 15 innings).

I'm pulling for the 35-year-old to give the Birds some quality innings, but I hope his shiny, small-sample-size AAA numbers don't tempt the Cardinals to use Jarvis in any high-leverage situations until he's proven that he has, indeed, been cured of chronic gopheritis.

Jason Marquis Retrospective

John Sickels tracks the pre-Cardinals career of Jason Marquis in a blog entry yesterday. His discussion ended with the following:

Similar Pitchers to Jason Marquis, through age 25 (Based on Sim Score and PECOTA, no active comps)

Pete Redfern
Wayne Simpson
Francisco Barrios
Johnny Marcum
Omar Olivares
Walt Terrell
Joe Sparma
Dave Goltz
Todd Stottlemyre
John Denny

I hadn't thought of an Olivares comp, but both are decent sinkerball pitchers. By the way Olivares is still floating around somewhere. While following Ankiel's progress in winter ball, I noticed that Olivares also was pitching in Puerto Rico (as was Bill Pulsipher).

Twenty Games In: Who's Hot and Who's Not?

On Pace For: 113-49
Magic Number: 139

Here's a look at the last ten games, during which the Cards went 8-2. One of the two losses was to Carlos Zambrano, which had me thinking of the old college football line "I'd take 1-10 as long as we beat State."

Who's Hot?

The starting rotation over the last ten games has the following line:

69.2 IP, 2.45 ERA, 57 H, 51 K, 17 BB, 3 HR

That's a solid ten-day stretch even taking the holes in the Pirates, Astros and Brewers lineups into consideration. Dan Szymborski pointed out that on the season the Cardinals pitching staff as a whole has given up the same number of homers as Eric Milton.

Mark Grudzielanek (duh) went 14-for-37 with 4 walks over the last ten games, posting a 378/439/622 line by my reckoning. Of course that's what supposed to happen when you hit for the cycle.

Larry Walker took offense at my suggestion that a 900 OPS was out of the question and went 8-for-26 with 6 walks, a HBP, 3 doubles and a HR. That's good for 307/455/538. His single to the wall against Lidge was impressive as was his opposite field groundball on Tuesday that froze shortstop JJ Hardy for an instant. Drawing walks in front of Pujols is double-plus good. La Russa's sticking to his plan of pacing Walker for a full season.

Who's Not?

Hector Luna had four at-bats in the last ten games, all of them yesterday, his lone hit coming on a ball dropped by a diving Geoff Jenkins. There were two schools of thought going into the season for Hector Luna, both very reasonable. One said Luna should polish his game playing everyday at AAA and maybe become an average shortstop overall, the other said the Cardinals were in a win-now mode that demanded the best roster possible. The Cardinals went the second route, but Nunez is the second 2B and the second SS right now. It doesn't make much sense to use Luna as a 7th outfielder, and presumably that's part of the reason Kevin Jarvis will be taking his spot on the roster.

Yadier Molina actually had a passable batting average over the past ten games, hitting 242/265/272, but it'll take a while to dig out of that 1-for-28 hole. He also only has one extra base hit on the season and two walks. In the past ten games Molina dropped a ball on a play at the plate, had a catcher's interference, and yesterday made me think the evil thought "That one wouldn't have gotten by Matheny." His bunt yesterday to move Luna to third with the Cards down by three in the seventh is inexplicable.

Cardinals baserunners have stopped stealing bases. With only four stolen bases so far, in 2005 we're going to find out if sit-on-your-butt baseball works.

Down on the farm, Anthony Reyes had a streak of 32 consecutive batters retired over two games. There was a time when Francisco Rodriguez was supposed to be a starter. Bo Hart is hovering around the Mendoza line. I'd guess he's the guy that gets bounced if the Cardinals find themselves in need of a 40-man roster spot.

Run away

Cardinals and Brewers are rain delayed right now.

The Cardinals have won 6 in a row, and 9 of their last 10. They have the best winning percentage in the majors, but it seems like only yesterday everybody was worried about Mulder and the teams slow start (3-4 to start the season). Winning 11 of their next 12 games certainly calms things down though.

Interestingly enough their record is two games better (based on runs scored vs runs allowed) than you'd expect, while the Cubs record is two games worse than you'd expect. Maybe La Russa is a genius.

If the game ever starts you can steal from employer by chatting here instead of doing whatever it is you should be doing.

April 27, 2005

As you've probably heard, Mark Grudzielanek hit for the cycle today. Yeah, three homers is more valuable, but the cycle's rarity makes it a neater event. Twenty years, fifty years and a hundred years from now broadcasters and newspapers (or their electronic successors) will note that "On this date in 2005 Mark Grudzielanek hit for the cycle against the Milwaukee Brewers." We could all use a little slice of immortality, and Grudzielanek just got his.

Chris Carpenter's effort shouldn't be overshadowed. While the Brewers lineup without Overbay is anemic, 12 strikeouts and no walks bodes well. The only negative is after throwing 100 pitches in the first seven frames, Carpenter pitched part of the 8th and ended up at 118. While I'm not a pitch count Nazi, that's a bit aggressive for a starter coming off an arm injury. I'm not saying it's reckless and I could wave my hands at it, but Jason Isringhausen's out and La Russa has a couple of guys down in the pen that he's not that comfortable with. We all remember the collective awfulness of the 2003 bullpen (Curveblog just invoked the accursed names of Yan, Springer, Fassero and Borbon), and one consequence was La Russa's compulsion to push Morris and Williams, a maneuever that ultimately backfired horribly. While the Cardinals have a lot more pitching depth than they had in 2003, milking every last out of the starters is too risky for the limited reward.

On a related note, Giants closer Armando Benitez is out for four months. RotoWorld is reporting that Fassero will get some save opportunities. The punchline is left as an exercise for the reader.

Pu's Big Night takes Back Seat to Izzy Owie

Albert Pujols' three-hit, four-RBI night finally gave the Cardinals a .300-hitting starter, but Jason Isringhausen's apparent muscle injury dampened the mood of a 5-3 Redbird win over Milwaukee.

Izzy came on to start the 9th with a two-run lead, and, having just walked pinch-hitter Chris Magruder with one out, Izzy threw a pitch to Brady Clark then collapsed to one knee, gripping his right side above the hip. I'm no doctor, but it looked as if he strained a rib or oblique muscle, and he was removed immediately. The astute TV crew replayed Izzy's pitch previous to the pitch to Clark---the ball four to Magruder---and what had seemed at the time to be a reaction to the walk could now be seen in retrospect as Izzy reacting to a pain in his side. One pitch later and Izzy was clearly hurting after the pitch.

Isringhausen has been stellar in the early going, pitching with a command that Cardinal fans never saw last year. He had control over his slider and he was throwing his devastating curveball for strikes. As we saw with Woody Williams in 2002, an oblique strain takes weeks to recover from, and is aggravated easily if not completely healed, at which point you have to start the recovery all over again.

The bullpen as a unit has pitched well so far, but losing Izzy for several weeks would be a severe blow. I imagine LaRussa would mix and match based on the circumstances of a given situation rather than anoint someone the replacement closer. But LaRussa loves his players to have defined roles so maybe, say, Al Reyes will get to wear the cape.

Prior to Izzy's unfortunate 9th the Wound of the Night belonged to Brewers' first baseman Lyle Overbay, whose malady was described thusly in MLB's Gameday play-by-play:

Milwaukee Brewers first baseman Lyle Overbay left the game due to an injured head.

Overbay made a sensational play on a Rolen foul pop into the stands as he leaned against the tarp rolled up against the stands and extended over the railing to grab the ball, losing his balance as he made the catch, his face and chin coming down directly on top of the eight-inch-high plexiglass atop the wall. As Pujols, who had been on second, alertly tagged and scampered to third, Overbay rolled over onto the grass in foul territory and began to bleed onto the Busch Stadium sod. Overbay had to exit the contest and would require twelve stitches to close the gash on his chin.

Larry Walker reached base five times on two singles, two walks, and a HBP, but on a night in which the Cardinals had a multitude of runners on base (19) but left most of them (14) there, Albert Pujols was the man. Pujols hit three screamers on the night, the first two being doubles that plated the Cardinals first four runs (two in the 1st and two more in the 4th) and the last one a smash to left for a single in the 6th.

In the 4th, Pu also made the defensive play of the game when, as he lumbered in on a Russell Branyan bouncer, the ball suddenly took a hop to Pujols' left. Pujols dove sideways to field the ball, landed belly-first and turned a kind of barrel roll and as he came out of his roll managed to eject the ball on a graceful arc into the outstretched glove of Jeff Suppan covering first a nanosecond (or less) before Branyan's foot hit the bag.

Then Pujols laughed and stuck out his tongue as if to say, yeah, that was ridiculous.

But five innings later the miens were more serious, and now we'll have to cross our fingers and hope that for Izzy it's nothing more than a strain, a few days of rest. But for a team of aging veterans that dodged serious injury throughout the joyride of 2004, the Cardinals lucky run may have given out.

Salvo's Random Redbird Bubblegum Card

Note: I collected thousands of bubblegum cards as a kid in the '70s, and I still have a great many of them, shoved in no particular order into cardboard boxes stacked Jenga-like on an upper shelf in a utility closet. I was never into plastic sleeves and playing the baseball-card futures market, so most of my cards, like the one below, are in a condition best appreciated by someone who actually unwrapped them freshly purchased from Williams Pharmacy thirty-some years ago and then proceeded, over the months and years, to put into and then take out of as many types of order (team, position, alphabetical, numerical, by career numbers, etc.) as can possibly be imagined by a busy young brain. I will periodically and randomly pluck from one of my boxes a bubblegum card---meaning a card that actually came packaged with a stick of gum---of a Cardinal player (star or scrub) and feature it on this site.

This bubblegum card, No. 24 in the 1973 series, features Cardinal righthander Al Santorini, who was coming off a moderately successful 1972 with the Cardinals. Spending much of the season as a fill-in for Scipio Spinks as the No. 4 starter (in the days when teams used 4-man rotations) after Spinks destroyed his knee sliding into Johnny Bench at home plate on the 4th of July, Santorini went 8-11 in 30 games, 19 of them starts. Three of those eight wins were complete-game shutouts, all after August 1, including this 12-strikeout gem against the Mets in his next-to-last start of the season.

Santorini would never again taste such success on the mound, as he started 1973 back in the bullpen and made 6 appearances before being traded to the Royals for swingman Tom Murphy. Still only 24 at the time of the trade, he was assigned to AAA Omaha, and he never again played in the majors.

After a phenomenal high school career in Union, NJ, (29-1 and named to the New Jersey Star-Ledger’s “All Century” NJ High School Baseball Team; he allowed 3 earned runs as a senior with 203 Ks in 103 innings), Santorini was Atlanta’s No. 1 draft pick (No. 11 overall) in the first amateur draft, in 1966. He had instant success as an 18-year-old at Austin (AA Texas League), posting a 1.69 era with 49 Ks in 48 innings. He missed most of 1967 with injuries, working just 16 innings, but was impressive enough in 19 starts at AA Shreveport in 1968 to earn a call-up to the Braves at the end of the season, appearing in one game, taking the loss in a start in which he allowed no earned runs.

The newly formed San Diego Padres selected the live-armed Santorini with their 7th pick in the expansion draft prior to the 1969 season, and, just 20 years old at the time, he was inserted into their inaugural starting rotation along with fellow youngsters Clay Kirby (21) and Joe Niekro (24). Santorini got off to a great start, allowing two earned runs or fewer in each of his first eight starts of the season (a Padres record not broken until Jake Peavy ran off 10 to start 2004), earning a 3-2 record to that point. He finished the year with a respectable 3.95 era (vs. league ERA of 3.53) and an 8-14 record, which, incredibly, netted him the distinction of leading the starters in wins (tied with Niekro) and winning percentage (.364) on a staff that lost 110 games.

Santorini regressed in 1970, struggling to a 1-8 record with an ERA above 6 before being demoted to Salt Lake City.

Resurfacing with the Padres in 1971 as a reliever, Santorini was pitching decently, with a 3.76 era and a 2-1 K/BB ratio when the Cardinals acquired him on June 11 in exchange for disappointing prospect Leron Lee (uncle of Cubs’ Derrek Lee) and dimunitive lefty Freddie Norman, who later enjoyed some success as a member of the Big Red Machine in the mid-‘70s. Two weeks before that trade, Santorini was involved in a scheme by Padre manager Preston Gomez in which the righthander was named to start the first game of a doubleheader vs. Houston, prompting the Astros to start a lineup with seven lefties. Santorini retired just one batter before being relieved by lefty Dave Roberts, who would go on to lose 2-1. Santorini then became one of the few liveball-era pitchers to start both ends of a doubleheader when he started the second game, and he gave up 2 earned runs in six innings but took the loss as the Padres got just one single off Larry Dierker. (Anecdote courtesy of baseballlibrary.com)

Santorini remained primarily a reliever and occasional spot starter after the trade to the Cardinals, until his elevation to the rotation in 1972.

I don’t know whether it was injury, ineffectiveness, or lack of opportunity that prevented him from playing in the majors following his May 1973 trade to Kansas City, as the last evidence of him playing that I could find has him at Toledo in 1974.

Santorini is currently the lead pitching instructor at the Jack Cust (Sr.) Baseball Academy in Flemington, NJ.

A little K-Rob Love

I was at Barnes & Noble the other day and ran across this book:

There are children around the world who will learn about baseball from this book. And no matter what else he's done in his career, the definitive picture of a baseball player for these children will be Kerry Robinson. That's awesome. It's not up there with 'Hall of Fame' but it's still a really cool thing.

(You have to trust me that it is Kerry Robinson, It's a phone camera picture inside so it's not the best shot ever).

Game Chatter -- 4/24/05 Cards go for sweep

Matt Morris is set to make his second start, after holding the Pirates to 1 run on 4 hits in 6 innings his last time out. The Astros counter with Brandon Backe, who's 1-0 with a 3.93 ERA so far this year, after going 1-0 with a 2.77 ERA vs. the Cards last year in 2 starts and 4 relief appearances. He also kept the Cards down in Game 5 of the NLCS last October, giving up just 1 hit in 8 strong innings down in Houston, but was roughed up to the tune of 4 runs in 4 2/3 innings in his Game 1 start of that same NLCS, played at Busch.

On a side note, a win would give TLR a total of 2,126 major league victories as a manager, good for sole possession of 5th place on the all-time list. Tony needs just 81 total victories this season to move ahead of Sparky Anderson for 3rd place on that list.

Cards' Arms open up Central race

The Cardinals led the NL last year in runs (855, 5.27/game,) batting average (.278), slugging (.460) and OPS (.804), often bludgeoning their opponents into submission while winning 105 games and the pennant. Lost amid the thunder was the remarkable performance turned in by the no-star pitching staff that quietly allowed the fewest runs (659, 4.07/game) in all of baseball. So ordinary, seemingly, was the rotation that when the best starter on the team---the unassuming and perfectly pedestrian Chris Carpenter---missed the postseason, no one outside St. Louis seemed to even notice. Yet Carpenter allowed the fourth-fewest baserunners/9 in the league, trailing only such well-known studs as Randy Johnson, Ben Sheets and Jason Schmidt, and bettering Roger Clemens, Carl Zambrano, Roy Oswalt, and every other pitcher in the league.

In 2005 Cardinals pitching continues to fly beneath the radar, but that may not last much longer. While several pre-season analyses pointed to the Cardinals pitching as a potential weak spot (Can Carpenter come back from his nerve problem? Can Matt Morris regain his form after off-season corrective surgery? Can Mark Mulder put his horrendous second half behind him and find the command that made him the All-Star starter last year? Can Jason Marquis show that 2004’s advance wasn’t a fluke, and build on shaky peripheral numbers that suggest he was more lucky than good?) the fact remains that the team was returning five starters who won 15 or more games last year, and every team’s staff has question marks.

But so far in 2005, the pitching---and lately, especially, the starting pitching---has been the major component of the team’s success.

Currently, the Cardinals rank in the top four in the league in team ERA, WHIP, and strikeout-to-walk ratio. Sure, it’s early, but that fact makes these rankings even more impressive, given that the Cardinals gave up 23 runs to Philly in two games---those two games representing 1/8th of the season to date---over the season’s first weekend. Through that first weekend the Cardinals allowed 35 runs in five games. Since then, they’ve allowed 24 runs over 11 games.

The bullpen has done well enough (3.52 era in 2005), but over the current nine-game stretch in which the Cardinals are 8-1 it is the rotation---all five starters---that has carried the team.

Since Mark Mulder’s last ugly outing---a 6-5 loss to the Reds on April 13 that dropped the Cardinals to 3-4---the Cardinals starting pitching has gone through Central Division rivals Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Houston like a hot knife through Benecol, Olestra, Simplesse, and Salatrim.

           G    IP    H   R  ER  BB    K  HR   ERA   W L
Suppan     2  14.2   14   3   2   5    5   0   1.23  1-1
Carpenter  2  15.2   12   3   3   4   11   0   1.72  2-0
Marquis    2  13.2   10   7   6   4   13   1   3.95  2-0
Morris     1   6.0    4   1   1   1    7   1   1.50  1-0
Mulder     2  18.0    7   1   0   3    7   0   0.00  2—0

TOTALS     9  68.0   47  15  12  17   43   2   1.59  8-1

Who knows how long this dominance will last; three of the Cardinals’ recent opponents are the bottom three in the league in runs scored, and they’ve only played 5 games this year against any of the top 10 scoring teams.

Still, given the sluggish performance of the hitters (collective .235 average, no starter at .300, only two above .259), Cardinal fans have to be thrilled by the team’s 11-5 record and the rotation’s role in attaining it.

Once the hitters get going (and we all know they will) this is a team that could very well dominate as they did last year---and the Birds’ already sizable 3-1/2 game lead may never be so small.

Mulder Watch

Let's dial it back to the 1980's. A left-handed #30, going against a Cy Young winner, shuts out a division rival for 10 innings and one of the great stretch drive pick-ups in history drives home the game's only run for the Cardinals. OK, it doesn't quite fit as John Tudor's gem was in September on the road and Larry Walker was acquired for last year's post-season, but Mark Mulder's performance today merits comparison to Tudor in 1985.

How good was Mulder? The only hard-hit ball on the day resulted in a measly single and for good measure that Astro was then erased on the game's only GIDP. It was as if Mulder needed a double play just to put the finishing touch on his masterpiece. Take the Mulder Watch down to DEFCON 5 (I think that's how General Maurice put it in WarGames). This is precisely what Jocketty envisioned when the Cardinals parted with a couple of decent pitchers and a top prospect.

Game Chatter -- 4/23/05 Clemens v. Mulder

I wanted to go to this game, but it's 43 degrees at Busch. Mulder has had two uneventful innings, but Pujols and Molina gave up on a foul pop way, way too soon. The defense continues to struggle.

Roger Cedeño came into the game 435/552/565 in 23 at-bats against Clemens. Nobody hid La Russa's cheat sheets, so Cedeño gets the start today. Yuck.

Chatter, Astros (8-7) at Birds (9-5), 4-22-05

Marquis (2-0, 1.33 era, 1.03 WHIP in 20.1 ip) vs. Duckworth (0-0, 9.00 era, 1.33 WHIP in 6 ip)

This might be the one game in this series where the Birds have a perceived edge; Duckworth has a career 5.15 era in 86 games (65 starts) and is fairly tater-prone (1 per 7 ip) while Marquis is on a great roll right now. In Duck's sole start this year, he allowed 5 runs, all on homers (2-run shot and 3-run shot) while Marquis enters the game having retired the last 18 hitters he's seen.

Tomorrow it's Clemens and his 0.43 era vs. Mulder, and Sunday it's Brandon Backe (remember how he completely shut us down in last year's NLCS?) against the resurrected Matt Morris, with his Jesus-like facial here and all.

An Ode to Engineering

Sorry if I bore the readers with yet another factoid about Miller Park, but I'm slightly obssessed with these retractable domes.

I was telling some of my friends that I went to 3 games at the MP and saw the roof both opened and closed, but that I really wanted to see the roof in action. Also, that I thought it was a shame they couldn't just open it up right before the game when the forecast turned out to be wrong and it was a beautiful day.

I got an amazing response from a Cubbie fan friend (those are heavy words for us all) who said he heard they can't open or close it when people are around because it apparently rocks the earth below your feet with ear-splitting creaking steel and 30,000ish people get the simultaneous uneasy feeling that the roof is falling down on them. Wow. If that's true, it's a great lesson for engineers and crowd psychologists, I guess.

Can anyone confirm/deny this rumor? How many other retractable domes are there and has anyone ever witnessed them in action?

Pujols VS Ichiro

ESPN has a series up today: Choosing your cornerstone, in which the question is asked:

Who's the better player to build a team around? Ichiro or Pujols?

Jayson Stark chimes in with Useless info which has this little factoid:

A lot has been made of Pujols' starting his career with four straight seasons of 120 RBI or more. But only seven players in history ever had a streak longer than that at any point in their careers. Not coincidentally, you can locate a plaque for all of them in Cooperstown, N.Y.:

Lou Gehrig 8 (1927-34)
Babe Ruth 7 (1926-32)
Joe DiMaggio 6 (1936-41)
Jim Bottomley 5 (1925-29)
Chuck Klein 5 (1929-33)
Jimmie Foxx 5 (1930-34)
Hank Aaron 5 (1959-63)

USS Mariner has a discussion in which the exciting prospect of 9 Ichiros vs 9 Pujols is discussed:

While, this doesn’t impact the debate much, but if you did have 9 Ichiros, the 3/4/5 hitters would have decent power I think. Maybe it’s unfettered fanhood that makes me think that Ichiro could hit a lot more home runs if he really wanted to, but I do. Not anywhere near as many as Pujols, obviously, but 9 Ichiros would still produce an awful lot of runs.

And your defense would be a lot better too. Who’s pitching? Because I have a feeling that a 9 Pujols team would be giving up a lot more hits on BABIP than the Ichiro version. Pujols in CF? That could end up costing a lot of runs. I’ve decided. 9 Ichiros over 9 Pujols. The smothering net of outfield defense is too exciting to pass up. And the joy that I would experience about that team winning is greater than the joy I would experience at the Pujols version winning.

I would watch Pujols in center field for the same reason I like slasher flicks: Sometimes you have to take your senses to the limit of gruesomeness they handle just to see where the edge is.

Pujols is clearly a better hitter and he's younger so I think if your objective was to win games he's the easy choice (The USS Mariner commentors agree) but if I were the owner of a team it would be very hard to turn down Ichiros incredible marketing power. The Mariners have Japan locked down and they have that entire revenue stream mostly to themselves. Pujols might be a better hitter but the money Ichiro makes you would give you the money to surround him with a much better supporting cast.

A Dish Best Served Cold...

By the Iron_Throne

In a mirror image of the opening game of this brief set, the Cardinals defeated the Cubs 4-0 at Busch Stadium yesterday. The major story of this game was the excellent pitching of newly signed Chris Carpenter. With a second strong start after getting knocked around at Philadelpia in his second game, Carpenter again made Jocketty look like a genius for locking Carp up for two years for the paltry sum of $13 million, with an option for 2008.

With the Cubs showing little patience against a pitcher coming off an arm injury, Carpenter needed only 96 pitches to get through the first 8.2 innings. After a rough start with two medium-hit ground balls that scooted past the reach of the two new components of the infield, Carpenter induced a double play and set down the next ten Cubs quickly into the sixth inning. A looping single from the incomparable Neifi Perez (seriously, PECOTA lists his comps as thumpers such as Rey Ordonez and Rey Sanchez) was followed by a bizarre play. It initially appeared as if Cory Patterson had hit a weak grounder that Pujols grabbed for the force at first and Eckstein took the quick relay to nab Perez at second. However, in his swing, Patteson nicked the glove of an over-eager Yadier Molina to nullify the double play with a catcher's interference call. Carpenter battled back against the heart of the Cubs' order by striking out Aramis Ramirez and getting Burnitz on a soft fly out to center.

Through all this, the Cardinals weren't looking much better against the erratic Ryan Dempster. Not showing their best, the Cardinals looked impotent most of the night as Edmonds and Sanders took it upon themselves to keep the air flowing in the stadium with powerful strokes of the bats and Walker looked like Sisyphus trying to get the ball out of the infield. Molina continued to hit the ball hard, but always at someone. All this changed in the bottom of the eighth, as Dusty decided that everybody should get a chance to play and began to roll out his whole bullpen in what is becoming a tradition for these Cards/Cubs meetings. In a rare show of prescience, the ESPN announcers predicted that bringing in the left-handed Remlinger to face the slumping Walker could only end badly for the Small Bears, as Walker has dominated in their previous meetings. And Walker continued to own Remlinger by jacking a no-doubter into the stands for his second home run of the season to add a precious insurance run. Another reliever and a two-run homer by Rolen and the Cards were comfortably up 4-0 giving Carp the chance for the complete game. Instead of trying to dig into the bullpen by stretching out Carpenter, the Cubs decided to go after Carpenter by swinging at everything and popped up the first two pitches for outs. Looking pretty gassed at this point, Carpenter gave up a single to Lee and his first walk, to Hollandsworth, before throwing everything he had left at the pinch-hitting Michael Barrett and striking him out with a Darryl Kile-type curve to clinch the game.

In much the same way as yesterday, a good pitcher dominated some weak bats and a mediocre pitcher put up some good numbers against an impatient lineup. This time the hometown crowd rejoiced and the stage was set for a long, hot summer of the Cubs chasing the Cards in the standings.

Cardinals: 9-5, two games ahead of the fourth place Cubs.

the Iron_Throne

Larry Walker

In comments to this entry tbone said:

If Card rightfielder David Wells (that is him out there, isn't it?) were to go down, they'd have atough time winning against the top teams.

I'll be damned if Larry Walker doesn't look a bit like Mr. Wells.

Fever Pitch

A friend of mine, and fellow St. Louisan, wondered a couple of weeks ago how Fever Pitch would be received in the Gateway City. Would Cardinals fans go see a movie that they might perceive as twisting the knife deeper into wounds still fresh from last October? Well I am here to tell you that Redbird Nation has nothing to worry about. Let's remove the Red Sox from the picture for a moment. If someone told you that this movie was directed by the Farrelly Brothers and written by two writers who know a lot about baseball (Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel of City Slickers and A League of Their Own fame), you'd jump in the car and head to the closest multiplex faster than David Wells can scarf down a porterhouse. But this is not really a baseball movie, nor is it even the best movie about the Red Sox (that honor goes to Fear Strikes Out).

Chatter, Cubs at Cardinals, 4-21-05

NOTE: Gametime 12:10pm CDT

Carpenter mows down Cubs.

The Cardinals will attempt to split the two-game series as they send Chris Carpenter (2-1) out against reclamation project Ryan Dempster (1-2, 5.74). Carpenter was masterful in the season opener and then got shellacked the following weekend by Philly; he pitched well in his last outing in Milwaukee, exiting with 2 outs in the 7th up 5-0, although he was responsible for three runners on base who later scored.

Dempster has actually pitched pretty well after being pounded out in Arizona in his first start; since then he's allowed 3er on 10 hits in 12 innings with 12 k's.

Last Night—Cubs 3, Cardinals 1

On a night on which Carlos Zambrano worked quickly and efficiently in mowing down the Cardinals while barely breaking a sweat, on a night on which the Cubs held an 18-7 advantage in baserunners, on a night on which numerous sloppy plays plagued the Cardinals and contributed to all three scoring innings for the Cubs, on a night on which the Cardinals gave almost no signs of being competitive in this first of 19 meetings between the two teams, the Birds still managed to come three feet away from tying the game in the 9th.

But with two outs and Scott Rolen on 2nd, John Mabry's deep fly ball on LaTroy Hawkins' only pitch of the night traveled only 390 feet instead of 393 feet before falling harmlessly into Corey Patterson's glove for the last out of the game.

That the Cardinals were even in a position to tie the game was something of a miracle given how they were dominated all game by Zambrano and threatened by Cub baserunners in every single inning, as well as tormented early by their own defensive ineptitude. But, if I'm remembering what the ESPN announcer said last night, the Cubs were just 4-for-18 with runners in scoring position, and one of those hits was a bunt single by Jerry Hairston that produced no runs.

One of the ESPN talkers mentioned that the Cardinals weren't smart in their approach to Zambrano by not working the counts and making him throw pitches, specifically mentioning an 8-pitch 5th and a 6-pitch 7th. As it was, Zambrano---who so far in his young career appears immune to the effects of high pitch counts---exited with 2 outs in the 9th at 118 pitches, but that was due to a blister. First, I don't know that he couldn't have thrown 140 pitches last night, and second, in the 8-pitch 5th all 8 pitches were strikes, and two of the outs were recorded on 0-2 pitches. It's hard to work the count when the pitcher is throwing strikes.

But one tactic the Cardinals should have employed against Zambrano was to step out during at bats and disrupt Z's rhythym, and maybe even get under the hot-headed Dominican's thin skin. Zambrano works extremely quickly; I was timing him at one point at less than 7 seconds from receiving the ball from the catcher to beginning his next pitch. But pitch after pitch, the Cardinals just stood in the box and waited for the next machine-like delivery.

Still, nothing may have worked on this night, and the Cardinals dodged so many bullets that perhaps they should feel lucky to have lost by just a 3-1 score. The Cubs left 13 runners on base as Suppan was constantly in trouble, and twice hit into double plays. But on three other occasions the Birds muffed potential double-play grounders, and although being charged with just one official error (when Mabry appeared to lose Neifi Perez's soft liner in the lights and the ball bounced out of his glove) the Cardinals executed poorly on several occasions, including two run-scoring hits to left center that Edmonds misplayed and let get past him and roll to the wall, and a poor decision by Einar Diaz on a one-out bunt that resulted in 2 on and 1 out instead of 1 on, 2 out.

As droopy as the Cardinals were all night, there were some bright spots: Albert hit another homer for the Cardinals' only run; Rolen made a superb run-saving play on a shot down the line, and then contributed a rope double to left in the 9th to finally chase Zambrano, even if it was purportedly due to a blister; and Randy Flores was excellent yet again in wriggling out of 2-on, 1-out jam left by Suppan, getting Burnitz on a popup after he flailed twice at sweepers, and then striking out Hairston on a back-door pitch on the outer corner.

For the Cubs, their joy in achieving a victory in Busch has to be tempered by Nomar's groin muscle tear that occurred in the 3rd inning. It was a tough night all around for Nomar, as he struck out with 2 on to end the Cubs 1st; threw the ball into the dugout to allow Mabry to reach in the 2nd; then, milliseconds before his groin exploded in the 3rd, hit a grounder that resulted in an inning-ending DP.

The Cubs prevailed last night with their ace, but things may swing the other way today as Ryan Dempster (5.74 era, 28 baserunners in 15.2 ip) takes the mound against Chris Carpenter, who pitched well his last time out.

Chatter, Cubs at Cardinals, 4-20-05

6:10 CDT, Jeff Suppan (1-1, 3.65 era, 1.54 WHIP) vs. Carlos Zambrano (1-0, 4.00 era, 1.22 WHIP).

Zambrano is just 1-4 vs. St. Louis in 9 career games (8 starts), with a 3.51 era. Home runs and control (both pitching-wise and temperament-wise) seem to be his undoing against the Cardinals, as he averages 4.3 bb/9 vs. the Birds, and of the 32 homers he has allowed during his career, 9 have come off Cardinal bats. And we all remember his bush-league plunking of Jim Edmonds last year after Edmonds "showed him up" by daring to hit a homer off him. Cubs and their fans claimed that Edmonds spent too long at home plate admiring his blast, but replays don't support that version of reality.

Soup, meanwhile, is slightly better vs. the Cubs than vs. the league at large, at 2-2, 4.06 era in six career starts.

Chatter, Birds at Bucs, 4-19-05

6:05pm, CDT: Fogg (1-0, 2.03 era, 0.92 WHIP in 13.1 ip over 2 starts) vs. Matt Morris, making his season debut after off-season shoulder surgery.

The Cardinals have creamed Fogg over his career, as he's gone 1-6 and allowed 38 earned runs in 35.2 ip for a 9.59 era. That is really bad.

Morris got in four starts in spring training, and two more in a minor-league rehab stint, and while some of the numbers from those starts are ugly (15 earned runs in 22.2 ip for a 5.96 era) there are encouraging signs---like 27 Ks(!!!) against just 5 walks and only 1(!!) home run allowed. His longest outing was 5.2 ip, last week.

I would be thrilled with 6 innings/3 runs out of Matt Morris tonight.

Mulder makes good

The game we've been waiting for this season finally came last night, when Mark Mulder went 8 innings and only gave up one run (unearned) for his first win in a Cardinal uni. It also ended a personal 9-game losing streak for Mulder, dating back to his unexplicably disasterous second half last year. I missed most of the game, but the box score alone was a beautiful sight. Mulder might have been able to go out for the 9th too, had it been needed, but the Cards offense 9 runs in the 9th inning. I often wonder what goes though a player's mind when he strolls to the plate in the top of the 9th, already up by a comfortable margin. Maybe So Taguchi and Roger Cedeno just wanted to make sure that Tony wouldn't be tempted to go to his worn out closer, so they combined for 6 RBI's in the 9th to ice the Pirates for LaRussa Insurance.

Also of note, Molina raised his average from .032 to .118 thanks to going 3-for-5. Some say that Yadier is going to turn out just like Matheny: all glove, no hit. But Matheny always seemed to do well in April, and I think it's safe to say that Molina is doing terrible this April. So maybe that means he'll do well the other 5 months of the season? Here's to hoping.

Today's oddity: the Cards scored 11 runs without a hit from either Pujols or Rolen. They did both walk and come around to score once a piece though. Maybe this is a better oddity: Pujols/Rolen 0-for-8 with 0 RBI, Cedeno/Taguchi 4-for-6 with 6 RBI

Shortstops

The stat lines:

                 AB AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS   SB CS
Edgar Renteria   52 .250  .264  .462  .726  0  0
David Eckstein   37 .270  .438  .324  .762  1  0

There are two interesting things to note about Renterias season so far:

                    AB   AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS   SB CS
Edgar Renteria 2004 586 .287  .327  .401  .728   17 11
Edgar Renteria 2005  52 .250  .264  .462  .726    0  0

If Renterias average went up by .037 points he'd have a carbon copy of his 2004 season, which wasn't that great (what would it take to get Edgar that bump? Change two outs to hits and he'd be sitting at an almost exact replica of last year).

The other interesting thing is that Renterias power is up a lot from last year. If the two hits drop in he's still hitting for much more power this year than last. In fact if he keeps this up he'll have the highest slugging percentage he's had since 2003 when he hit .330/.394/.480/.874 his best year to date.

Renterias Isolated Slugging for the last 5 years:

      Isolated Slugging
2000  .145
2001  .111
2002  .134
2003  .150
2004  .114
2005  .212

Meanwhile David Eckstein's outlier is obvious as well:

                      AB AVG   OBP   SLG   OPS   SB CS
David Eckstein 2004  566 .276  .339  .332  .671  16 5
David Eckstein 2005   37 .270  .438  .324  .762  1  0

The average and slugging both track perfectly from last year, but the OBP is way off. Looking at Ecksteins career walk rate tells the story:

      Walk Rate
2001  .070
2002  .070
2003  .073
2004  .063
2005  .168

One player is walking twice as much as he ever has in the majors while the other is hitting for almost twice as much power as he did last year and roughly 40% more power than his peak year and almost double last year. It's still really early, and a slump or hot streak by either player could change this but at this point I'd rather be paying $2.3 million that the Cards are paying Eckstein than $8 million that the Red Sox are paying Renteria. If Renteria drops back to not so good Edgar the Sox are on the hook for a lot of cash, but if Eckstein drops back to not so good David the noose isn't as tight around the Cardinals neck.

Money aside the Cardinals have the better shortstop so far this year, and since it's not my money thats all I care about.

Milestones at Miller

I had a great time this past weekend at Miller Park. Saw some good friends, family and baseball. Saw the roof open and closed. Saw the Cards sweep the Brewers.

Does it get better than that?

I even got snuck into "Club Level" by my friend Russell Badgett, an honest to goodness Brewers fan. Rusty showed me a great picture he STILL had on his cell phone of a home-made banner at Miller last year marking the 100th win by our accomplished Cards club.

Also, no one's mentioned it yet, but Sunday marked our beloved TLR's 800th win as a Cardinal.

Tony, odi et amo your moves... but thanks.

Let's see what else we can get done this year at Miller Park.

As an aside, I was surprised by the following trivia at MP on Sunday:

What Brewer holds the single-season record for hits:
a) Jeff Cirillo
b) Cecil Cooper
c) Robin Yount

First of all, I was surprised no Paul Molitor. Secondly, I was surprised at the correct answer.

Thirdly (I'm really uncomfortable writing "thirdly"), I was surprised that about 30-40% of the fans were clearly Cards fans. My brother-in-law Jeff told me that for Cubs games, it's about 75% Cubbie fans. Maybe the Cards and Cubs could schedule a road series there, a sort of Trading Spaces for baseball freaks who are just looking for an excuse to drive. Hmmmm, but let's not get started on the scheduling between the Cubs and Cards.

How Do They Stay Up?

The Cardinals team is doing its best bumblebee impression: taking a close look at it, you marvel that it can even get off the ground, much less achieve any kind of forward momentum once aloft.

Let’s look at these wonders of science that seem to defy the very principles of sabermetrics in flying off to a first-place position two weeks into the season.

The performance of the Cardinals' stubby little bats, upon inspection, yields few clues as to their role in attaining the team’s 6-4 record.

The team ranks last or next to last in several critical categories:

Runs    Avg.     obp     2b    xbh     bb     sb
 43     .220    .283     11     27     27      2
 15      16       16     16     15     16     15  (league rank, out of 16)

Closer examination, however, reveals how the offense may be more effective than these numbers suggest:

(1) While the team is next-to-last in the NL with 43 runs, they’ve also played the fewest games, so their 4.3 runs per game is actually better than the RPG of five other teams.

(2) Second, they are tied for the NL lead in home runs, so while they’re putting fewer runners on base than any other team, they’re compensating for it by getting more “instant runs” than a team like Houston (.344 obp, 4.0 rpg, but just 8 hr in 11 games).

(3) The Cardinals strike out by far and away the fewest times in the league: only 4.6 strikeouts per game while the rest of the league averages 6.5 per game. Now, we all know that a strikeout is, in most cases, no worse than any other kind of out. Still, things DO happen when you put the ball in play (Exhibit A: Rolen’s catchable---and, apparently, droppable---pop fly yesterday that scored Pujols from first) and for a team that so far has needed some breaks to go their way, more balls in play provide more opportunities for breaks.

(4) The Birds may be hitting just .220 as a team, but they are, like last year, a team that relies disproportionately on a few big offensive guns and can tolerate a black hole here and there. The biggest black hole has been Yadier Molina, who, at 1-for-29 drags the team average down 17 points all by himself. It’s true that no starter is hitting above Albert Pujols’s .275, but the key offensive cogs have been hitting enough (Sanders early, Rolen recently, Pujols always) at the right times.

(5) Timely hitting: The Cardinals have been able to win with a minimum of hits. In their last 4 wins they’ve gotten just 25 hits, including 5 hits three times. Yesterday vs. Milwaukee their 5 hits went like this: 4th inning—Pujols hit, Rolen hit scores Pujols; 6th inning-- Pujols hit, Rolen hit scores Pujols (with some bad defense); 9th inning—Rolen hit (homer) wins game.

All this focus on the offense is, I guess, a little misguided.

The key to the Cardinals 6-4 record has been, of course, the pitching. Their 4.35 era is just 10th best in the NL, but it’s inflated by back-to-back blowout losses to the Phillies in the first weekend. They’ve allowed an average of just 3 runs per game other than that, and each starter except Mulder has looked exceptional at least once. Marquis has looked sharper each time out, culminating in yesterday’s game in which he retired the last 18 Brewers he saw.

The pen has seemed shaky at times (pedestrian 4.13 era), but for the most part has been extremely solid. Izzy was sensational last Wednesday, entering a bases-loaded nobody out jam and getting out of it without a run scoring, and his command of his curve and slider seem better than at any point last year. The pen is striking out better than a batter an inning (Al Reyes and Randy Flores have 16 strikeouts between them in 9.2 ip), and Ray King is unscored upon. Another key for the relievers is that they have allowed just one homer in 28.1 innings.

This team has not played like a first-place team, yet they’re somehow 6-4 and in the catbird seat. No starter above .275? Ten games in and nobody has more than two doubles? Let’s face it, they could just as easily be 3-7 if a few breaks go the other way, but even if that were the case, this team knows that better days are ahead once the bats heat up---and they will heat up. And when they do, it will be like…well, like last year.

Cards-Pirates Chatter Monday 4-18-05

Williams (1-0, 1.59) vs. Mulder (0-1, 8.18)

If you're getting more and more worried about Mulder (who isn't?) take a look at how he started off in '03. He gave up 4 runs in 6 innings his first time out, then gave up 4 in only 5 innings his 2nd time out, for a 6.55 ERA after just 2 starts. However, by the end of April, he had it down to 3.14, thanks to ending the month with back-to-back complete games with a combined 1 run allowed. I'm still worried, but that calmed me down a bit.

This should be a big little series against Pittsburgh as far as our pitching staff is concerned, with Mulder going tonight and Morris tomorrow. Also, don't miss any of Albert's AB's. He's a lifetime .388 hitter at PNC Park with 14 homers and 42 RBIs in 139 at-bats. Pujols' career slugging percentage in Pittsburgh: .777 - absolutely amazing.

Monday Baseball Trivia--because I feel like it...

And besides, there's a Cardinals connection and a Browns connection to a couple of these questions. The quiz is below the fold; answers are over at my blog.

1) Today is the 24^th anniversary of the longest professional baseball game in history. I'll give you a hint; it's not an MLB game. That hint being given, name the minor league level, league and teams involved in this game.

2) How long did the game last, in innings played and in clock time?

3) Name two Hall of Famers who played in this game.

4) What is the longest MLB game ever played, by clock time? By number of innings played?

5) The longest MLB game ever played (by number of innings played, not by clock time) ended in a tie. Name one of the two longest games (by number of innings played) that was played to a decision. (Hint: One AL game, and one NL game are each tied for this honor.)

6) What is the shortest time ("clock time", obviously) it's taken to play a "regulation" doubleheader (i.e., two 9-inning games) in MLB? (I have to wonder here if any of you are old enough to remember what a doubleheader is... ;-) )

7) What is the shortest time ("clock time", again) it's taken to play a complete 9-inning game in MLB?

FWIW, if you use Google you're cheating, but since there's no prizes or anything like that involved it's not like I can stop you.

:-)

Ten Games In -- Who's Hot & Who's Not

Yeah, the sample sizes are meaningless, but it's time to start the shift from projections to actual. I can't do that Sagarin thing where early in the college basketball season he gives pre-season forecasts weight, so we'll have to make do.

Who's Hot?

Jason Marquis Let's see, 1.33 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 15/4 K/BB and only one flukish home run allowed in 20.1 innings. Today he mowed down the last 18 he faced and made Carlos Lee look as uncomfortable in the batter's box as Larry Walker facing Randy Johnson. I can't shake the feeling that Marquis is a nice, average pitcher experiencing some luck though. Today, for example, he only got a first-pitch strike against 14 of the 29 batters he faced; I'm not sure what exactly is good, but I'm pretty sure that's mediocre at best.

Jim Edmonds Edmonds is hitting 269/375/692, which isn't particularly impressive for him even if he is battling the flu. Originally this spot was to be occupied by Reggie Sanders, but he's got a .281 on-base percentage. Maybe David Eckstein's .419 OBP fits the bill, but the .324 SLG doesn't. Newsflash: Nobody's hitting really well.

Jason Isringhausen Nobody aside from Marquis is pitching that well either. But Isringhausen has converted all five save opportunities and has generally looked good out there. He's got seven appearances in ten games and that can't continue.

Who's Not?

Yadier Molina 1-for-29 with one walk. Tony Womack had a nasty slump like this around the All-Star Break, and Molina reminds me a little bit of Womack. They both have one real skill as hitters -- strikeout avoidance -- they don't draw walks, and they don't have power. They'll hit some line drives, but the outfielders should play them shallow enough to snag a few. The big difference of course is that Womack would reach base when he tapped a little bouncer to the left side, while as Ryan pointed out, Molina has almost no chance at infield singles. Obviously Molina's a better hitter than 034/067/034, but I'm starting to think we've got Mike Matheny II on our hands.

Mark Mulder Unless you've been stranded on a desert island you know about this one. My shoulder's worn out from beating another dead horse, so I'll take a different tack. Mulder's a groundball pitcher and the Conventional Wisdom says his shortstop tries to compensate for lack of physical talent through superior positioning. If Mulder's not hitting his spots, Eckstein doesn't have a chance. If Eckstein's due for a day off, then I'd give it to him on a day Mulder's starting.

Larry Walker Alan Schwarz had a column at the New York Times on the meaning of cold starts. There are various caveats that have to be considered, one of which is that old players generally do worse in April (and all other months) than their career numbers indicate. Another caveat is that players moving from a good-hitting environment to a poor one also decline. That's Larry Walker, although that doesn't fully explain his 206/289/324. I wasn't worried about Scott Rolen since he's seemed OK physically from the first day of spring training, but Walker has had various physical ailments and he's getting up there in years. While Walker will improve, the hopes of a 300/400/500-type season have dimmed.

Cards-Brewers chatter, Sunday 4-17-05

Santos (0-0, 3.60) vs. Marquis (1-0, 1.38)

I'm posting this with 2 out in the bottom of the first, and Marquis has already allowed a leadoff HR to Card-killer Brady Clark. A better leftfielder would have caught the fly ball without too much trouble, as it bounced off the top of the 8-foot-high fence while Mabry watched, not even attempting a leap as he seemed caught off guard by the presence of the wall.

Carpenter signs

It was announced last night that Chris Carpenter has signed a contract extension with the Cardinals through 2007, which a team option for 2008. The terms weren't released, but the Post Dispatch said, "The deal is believed to pay Carpenter about $6 million per season should the third season vest." There are significant appearance incentives not available to the public, so the final value of the contract is up in the air, but it sounds like a sweet deal for the Cards. Worst case, if he suffers from continual injuries, the Cardinals are probably only out about $10-12 million. On the other end of the spectrum, if Carpenter avoids injury, and pitches like he did in '04, we've got a bonafide ace on our hands for below market value.

Here are some of Carpenter's comments from the P-D article:

"It's very exciting for me and my family. It's exciting to be part of the Cardinals team for several more years," Carpenter said before Friday's game against the Milwaukee Brewers. "It's good to know the players, the manager and the general manager who are going to be around. It plays into wanting to be part of this team."

"Basically my other option was to pitch the season and then look into the free agent market, or get it done now and know that for the next three years I was going to be where I wanted to play," he said. "There's a lot of stability in this organization. Everybody here is pretty solid in the direction they're going. There is no transition. I wasn't going to go somewhere just for the money and take the chance of being miserable."

You'd think as Cardinal fans we'd be used to hearing these kinds of things from guys who forego a bit of salary in order to stay in St. Louis when free agency nears, but it never gets old, does it? I wonder if Kline's recent comments helped him realize the importance of being somewhere you want to be?

Roll the Barrel

I'm outside of Chicago right now, in town for the Cards/Brewers series. Tonight is my first Cards game of the season, my first time at Miller Park and my first time in several years seeing the Cards in their away jerseys. Here are some scattered thoughts about the game:

- Miller Park is an interesting place. The giant, steel geisha fan of a dome was closed tonight, I guess it must have been raining somewhere else. The parking lots have a midwestern musical amphitheater feel to them: connected to the venue, $6, incredibly big and full of folks drinking. So far, I like this place.

- We were late to the game. Hey, you try driving for 6 hours and then feeding a 1.2 year old a jar of turkey/vegetable paste and still get to the game on time.

- Saw Pujols hit his solo HR through the cracks as we circled Miller Park to find our seats. I was surprised by how may Cardinal fans represent. Proud to be wearing the red tonight.

- I'm all in favor of the Cards returning to their away powder blue uniforms. The grays just look like my old white T-shirts, you can't really tell if they're clean or dirty or what color they really are.

- Ben Sheets: Great thrower of the ball over a tiny plate with a batter guarding it, horrible thrower of the ball to 1st base. But you definitely take runs off this guy any way you can get them. Should have also charged Jenkins with a throwing error.

- Some stats from the Miller Park big screen:

Albert Pujols is the 7th youngest player ever to hit 500 RBIs.
Reggie Sanders has 12 career World Series hits.

and you thought you knew the Cardinals.

- If you've been following this blog, you may have read about my fantasy footrace between Pagnozzi and Pujols. Well, after watching Molina try to beat out a well-hit ball into the SS/3B hole tonight, I'd say he'd lose to both those guys. Yes, even a present-day Pagnozzi.

- After Eckstein walked, in what was a great example of a quality plate appearance, he sprinted to 1B. I dig the meaningless hustle.

- In Yady's defense, he blocked at least 2 nasty pitches in the dirt. I'm happy with him behind the plate and believe, with some hard work and a little luck, he'll pull his current offensive numbers up to the golden crest of Mike Matheny.

- Is the gun at Miller Park calibrated properly? Derrick Turnbow is throwing 97-98mph heat. The hottest smoke off Izzy's fingertips was more like 94.

- Suppan through 8: 93 pitches, 33 balls, 60 strikes. Cardinal's Soup is Mmmm, Mmmm... Good.

- Rolen's numbers this season are sad. As a fantasy fanatic, I couldn't tell if it was a slow start, a flukey start or what. In person, he looks like he's really fighting himself at the plate. Rolen doesn't have the prettiest swing around, but it's compact and he's as strong as an 8-cylinder hemi. Now he looks confused and awkward, like he's swatting flies with boat oars.

- Some more about Miller Park, then I'm out until tomorrow. On the inside, and compared to the Metrodome, MP is a shrine to baseball. There's grass, the walls are blues, the park is comfortingly typical. I'm sure on nice days, with the sun out and the steel blinds drawn, it's gorgeous. With tickets stepping up the 5/10/12... dollar range, who can argue? But it's a little too bland for me. The main CF scoreboard is ridiculously plain and gigantic, and at least to me slightly confusing to read. I also feel as if the game itself is competing for the fans' attention with the video shenanigans. Baseball Powers that Be, please realize this is not a necessary ballpark feature to get new fans -- the game is already inherently interesting. I'm also not a fan of sticking the manual league-wide scoreboards in the outfield walls themselves, but that's just me.

Overall, tonight's game was a sleeper, fast in time, slow in action. Two great pitching efforts by a great and an average pitcher, and not much else other than a solo shot by the modern game's greatest hitter, plenty of drunk chatter, a sausage race, some cheerleaders and a beer polka rather than "Take Me Out to the Ballgame". But it was my 1.2 year old nephew's first Cardinal game ever.

He clapped a lot, and he couldn't see the TV.

Tidbits from Baseball Prospectus

When you look at your team's starting lineup, do you ever fantasize about what might happen if they all repeated their best seasons? It's a natural thing to do. I'm not talking about the great season they had 12 years ago, but their best season within the past four years (2001-2004). Here is what the Brewers lineup would do if such a miracle came to pass:

 

EqA Year Player

.262 2004 Damian Miller (Chad Moeller, .256 in 2003)

.294 2004 Lyle Overbay

.292 2002 Junior Spivey

.287 2002 Russell Branyan

.254 2003 Bill Hall

.300 2004 Carlos Lee

.276 2004 Brady Clark

.306 2003 Geoff Jenkins

 

On average, that's about a .283 EqA. Doing the same thing with the Cardinals lineup, you get an average of about .306. Now, what if you did the exact opposite with the Cardinals starting eight? How do they fare if you take their very worst performance from the last four years and got an approximate average? To answer, it's about .279. What does this prove? Just the general unfairness of things, really. One team matching its best recent outings comes out scarcely better than another matching its worst--doesn't seem sporting, does it?

Brewers game chatter

It's the Brewers today as Jeff Suppan and Ben Sheets square off. Sheets is 4-8 with a 4.41 ERA in 15 career starts against the Cardinals over his career. Suppan is 7-2 with a 4.71 ERA over 10 starts against the Brewers.

The Cards are 3-4 on the season while the Brewers are 5-3.

I'll admit I don't read any Brewers blogs so I have nowhere to send you, but you can always stay here and chat away below.

Uh... Ok

The Cub Reporter hates steve kline:

After a few paragraphs going over Steve Klines "I miss St. Louis" speech we get to this:

So why did you sign the big bucks and leave St. Louis, Kline?

“I had to take care of my family.”

Be a water conservationist, Kline. Sosa’s pool of self-pity is big enough for both of you to wallow in, without you having to go off and build your own….

I understand disliking a player (sup kenny?) so I have no beef with "Transmission" wallowing in Klines misery, but the insult is so weak I have to make fun of it.

Dude tried to snap on Steve Kline by telling him to be a water conservationist. If you said that in public there'd be a long uncomfortable pause followed by a life time of taunting and humiliation. And thats if it was improv, dude sat down and wrote that out and thats the best he had.

My favorite part is the awkward bridge to Sosa bashing (and I don't really get that one, all Sosa did was hit home runs and be a superstar, but I'm not a Cubs fan so who knows). Because if Sosa has a pool of self pity how would Kline sharing that pool conserve water? Wouldn't it conserve self pity? Can you share self pity?

The correct way to do this (and make sure it's funny) is to diss Kline, wait a few seconds (or a new paragraph) and end with "And Sammy Sosa can kiss my a** too". Because it's such a non sequiter it's funny, but if you go for the complicated connection (See they build a pool and then share it so they use less, water, so Klines a water conservationist and him and Sosa are whiners) you wonder off into the woods and eventually have to ask "You get it?" which means it wasn't funny. If you have to ask it's no good.

To make this marginally Cardinal related I have to say that it's a sad day for Cards/Cubs antagonism when the only players we can really get behind hating aren't even on the teams we're supposed to hate. I can't really think of a Cub I hate, which seems a little pathetic. If anybody has any good suggestions for a cub boogeyman I'd really appreciate it.

Trivia, Uniforms, Quotes about the Wizard

This entry comes straight from left field.

First, I came across this newspaper article about San Diego Padres announcer Jerry Coleman. I can't tell if given enough time, every mic jockey will say goofy stuff or if this guy is a real west-coast Mike Shannon:

"Ozzie Smith just made another play that I've never seen before, and I've seen him make it more often than anyone else ever has."

And he's got a *lot* more where that one came from. Of course, the nice thing about these types of quotes is we actually know exactly what he's talking about.

Secondly, my uncle asked me a nice little trivia question that I still don't know the answer to. I avoided looking it up methodically, because that takes the fun out of it, and I also assumed a blog of input could answer it really quickly:

How many MLB teams wear pinstripes this year and who are they?

Discuss amongst yourselves.

Stop Worrying about Mulder