Cardinals Defeat the Dominican Republic Behind Strong Pitching

Well, the biggest game of the spring has come and gone, and it actually doesn't leave a mark on the record. I'm not even sure what to call an exhibition in the middle of an exhibition season!

The Cards took the game against the Dominican Republic 4-1. Lots of good pitching news to take away from this one. 

First off, Todd Wellemeyer, who as the starter really got to face the brunt of the team, allowed only one run over four innings. Pretty nice work when you think that he faced Jose Reyes, Robinson Cano, Miguel Tejada, and David Ortiz in his first four batters. That has to be a confidence boost for him, as well as possibly a good sign that he's not as much of a fluke as some people want to believe.

Ryan Franklin, Chris Perez, Josh Kinney, and Jason Motte combined to pitch five shutout innings of one-hit (allowed by Kinney) ball the rest of the way. If the bullpen does that on a regular bases (fewer innings, hopefully, but same results), the Cardinals are going to be challenging all year long.

And hey, even better news for pitching: Carlos Marmol, the Cubs' closer to be, blew the lead in his inning of work. Hopefully that sticks in his head for the regular season.

You know it's a pretty good pitching day when Dave Duncan complains that Wellemeyer is "too efficient." Couldn't get his pitch count up. Tough problem to have, huh?

Not as much happening on the offensive side. Skip Schumaker got two hits, which was nice, but he wasn't a part of the double play that was turned. Khalil Greene had a pretty good day in the field and registered a hit as well.

The biggest news of the day, of course, was that the Cardinals made a spring training signing for the second straight year, pulling Dennys Reyes in from out of the cold. Reyes, who before now was best known to Cardinal fans as giving up Mark McGwire's 60th home run in 1998 (and, interestingly enough, played in the game that McGwire hit No. 60 in '99), was considered one of the top lefties still on the market.

Reyes definitely has the history to be an effective lefty specialist. Righties do fairly well against him, though it's not quite the gas-can-to-the-fire that Royce Ring has been in the past. He and Trever Miller should be very effective in the late innings, giving Tony La Russa even more good options and possibilities to ponder. And we know how much TLR loves having things to think about.

The other lefties—Ring, Charlie Manning, Ian Ostlund—can either start auditioning for other teams or looking for apartments in Memphis. I believe Ring is out of options, so he'll probably be released soon, as well as Ostlund. I'd expect Manning to get optioned to Memphis in case Miller or Reyes gets hurt.

Yesterday, we started the Cardinal Nation Approval Ratings. I got 52 responses from the various locales (Viva El Birdos, CardsClubhouse, here), and what it boils down to is La Russa has a 79.5 percent approval rating. Pretty even across the board. VEB gave 80.5, CCH 80.2, and this site 71.2.

Included is my score of 85 percent. I love that La Russa is such a competitor and looks for all the possibilities to win. I had to dock him for the public blowups with players (such as Scott Rolen) and his occasional overuse of the bullpen. All in all, though, it's good to have him.

We'll get into the players next week, but today's CN Approval Rating subject is our famous and infamous broadcaster, Mike Shannon. We'll leave Shannon up all weekend and get his results on Monday.