Making Applesauce

While in some respects it's true, as Matthew Leach Tweeted yesterday after the game, that the reason they lost isn't because of Jason Motte, but the most immediate reasoning is that he threw six fastballs in relatively the same place to a fastball hitter.  While I've thought that Motte could be a closer at times (and noticed the Sports Illustrated baseball preview made the suggestion he should), the caveat is that he has to develop another pitch.  It's been said that major league hitters could time bullets if you kept firing them at the plate.  Continuing to just throw fastball after fastball, even at great speeds, isn't going to get the job done.  Dusty Baker was quoted after the game as saying, "Frankly, I was surprised he threw him another fastball."  This is why Dusty sometimes gets derided in the sabermetric/informed crowd, because Dusty, EVERYBODY knew he was going to throw another fastball.

Right now, though, there's not much option but to ride out Motte and Ryan Franklin, because there aren't solid replacements ready and waiting.  To be fair, this is just the third game of the season and things can change quickly, so perhaps it's a little overreaction.  However, when you factor in how often Motte gave up long balls last year and how Franklin looked down the stretch, there's a larger sample size to deal with and it doesn't look all that good.

The Post-Dispatch story makes the point: Starters so far this year for St. Louis have given up five runs in 20 innings.  The relievers have given up six runs (five earned) in 6.1 innings.  For all the Cardinals did against the soft underbelly of the Reds bullpen, it easily could be that turnabout is fair play.

You really have to tip your cap to Bronson Arroyo, though.  I watched some of that game at lunch and listened to more at work and his pitches were really moving and keeping the Cardinal hitters off balance.  Of course, the fact that he was pretty motivated against the Redbirds didn't hurt a bit, I don't expect.  It's possible Scott Rolen was up for the game as well, as he made some spectacular plays over at third, just like the Rolen we knew and loved.

On the very positive side for St. Louis, Brad Penny threw a gem.  If this is what the Cards are going to get out of Penny on a consistent basis, this rotation is going to challenge last year's for the number of great games the team gets out of them.  I mentioned that one thing I wanted to look for was if Penny was getting ground balls.  He retired 13 batters in that manner yesterday, coupled with four strikeouts, so I'd say that the Duncan philosophy has taken root.

Matt Holliday went yard, so early returns on that contract are going well.  Skip Schumaker came around a little bit by getting a couple of hits on a day where hits were rare, so maybe he'll start becoming more of a factor.  (Hits were rare is an understatement--these are the only two guys that got any!)

Now the team has to shake that off and move on to Milwaukee.  At least the schedule gives us a fine chance to see how the Cards stack up against some of the potential problems in the division.

Kyle Lohse goes this evening in his first start of the season.  He's already got a lot to live up to, following these first three starters.  It seemed like everything that could go wrong last year for Lohse did, so if he can come out tonight, throw a quality start, and not get injured or have some sort of flukiness happen to him, perhaps we can more reasonably expect something closer to 2008 than 2009 from him.

	PA	AB	H	2B	3B	HR	RBI	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS	SH	SF	IBB	HBP	GDP
Jody Gerut	35	33	10	2	0	1	4	2	4	.303	.343	.455	.797	0	0	1	0	1
Craig Counsell	23	22	10	1	1	1	2	1	6	.455	.478	.727	1.206	0	0	0	0	0
Prince Fielder	18	15	4	0	0	0	1	3	1	.267	.389	.267	.656	0	0	0	0	0
Jim Edmonds	16	14	3	0	0	0	2	2	2	.214	.313	.214	.527	0	0	0	0	0
Rickie Weeks	16	15	4	1	0	0	1	1	2	.267	.313	.333	.646	0	0	0	0	0
Ryan Braun	15	15