St. Louis Cardinals: Who's Hot, Who's Not

Another last note about the bullpen is that no one is really impressive. One guy has a 2.89 E.R.A. and that's about it. Just one guy who is younger than 24 again. Although Sanchez is just 20 years old. Yes, his stats are bad so far, but wow.

The starting catcher Steven Hill has hit 10 homers so far this year. That's about 25 homers in a AA season. However, he's 24 years old too and he has 23 year old Bryan Anderson and 26 year old Yadier Molina in front of him. Also, he hasn't hit a homer since May 23.

 

Cardinal Game

This was pretty awful again in all facets of the game. Hitting? Two runs so check. Starters? Just five innings with three runs and he got bailed out by Chris Perez so check. Bullpen? Four runs in four innings so check.

The Cards runs come right away with a Shumacher single, Rasmus' double, and then Pujols hit a sacrifice fly that, and this is a first for me, drove in both runners. Carlos Gonzalez made a diving catch, hit the wall, and laid down for a few seconds giving time for Rasmus to score.

Ubaldo Jimenez then promptly retired 17 straight hitters including Albert interrupted by another Rasmus double. Pineiro struggled mightily the whole five innings. He pitched through the first five only allowing one run.

Then things unraveled in the sixth. He gave up four consecutive singles before La Russa pulled the plug. McCllelan pitched a scoreless seventh and then gave up four earned runs in the eighth. As a side note, ESPN made a mistake in the recap. They said the Rockies swept us, but I believe we are playing them tomorrow.

No. 24 Todd Wellemeyer

2008- 13-9, 3.71
2009- 5-6, 5.32
Physical Features- 6'3", 205
Baseball Cube- Control- 31, K-rating- 87, Efficiency- 54

How Cards acquired him: Claimed him off waivers in 2007 from Kansas City
What 2009 Will Hold- Well this told me two things. One my suggestion of bringing Boggs up won't happen, because he has a one year 4.05 million deal. Two, his performance last season was better than I thought.

Also, I may have found something that isn't promising. His K/9 IP is steadily declining. In 2007 in combined seasons with KC and STL he has a 6.8 K/9 IP, in 2008 it was 6.3 and this year its 5.8. His BB/9 IP has also increased from 2.9 last year to 3.9.

The last stat is especially depressing because it seems that was a big reason from his surprising season. During seven seasons in the minors, he had a 4.0 BB/9 IP and in seven major league seasons he had a 4.3 BB/9 IP. That's bad because his career E.R.A. is 4.53.

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