St. Louis Cardinals Continue To Roll Heading Into Regular Season

Since we last got together to discuss the St. Louis Cardinals on the field, they've won three of four and tied in the other. There comes a point where spring results have to be taken seriously, don't they?

The Cardinals are 15-6-2 and just a game behind Atlanta for the best record in Florida.  It'd be one thing if they were winning slugfests, but the pitching has been sharp as well.  They've won with early leads and they've rallied in the ninth.

I think there may be something special in this year's club.

Look at yesterday's game for example. The Baltimore Orioles put up two runs in the first inning on some shaky Cardinals fielding.

The Cards responded with two in the bottom of the inning. Baltimore took a 3-2 lead in the second, and St. Louis came back to tie it up. Baltimore scored again in the seventh, the Cards tied it in the eighth and won the game in the ninth.

Ryan Ludwick seems to be getting a little more comfortable at the plate. He's hit his two spring home runs in the past week and I was able to see him rope a double yesterday. He looked like he was more in tune with what was going on, which is good for Cardinals fans to see. 

With his breakout last year, there's always the possibility of a one-year fluke. I don't think that'll happen with Ludwick, but his performance at the beginning of the spring didn't help those thoughts.

It was nice to see Blake Hawksworth come in with a scoreless inning and get the win.  Granted, it'll be our last look at the "Hawk" for a while, but it's still nice to see.

The reason for that is more cuts were made yesterday. While it's not too surprising to see Hawksworth or Jon Jay (he drove in yesterday's game-winning run) sent down, I was pretty surprised to see Tyler Greene was one of those demoted.

At least earlier in the camp, it really looked like Greene was going to go north as a utility infielder type. Apparently they figured he should play a little more regularly.

This also must mean the powers that be are much more comfortable with Skip Schumaker at second. The only other middle infielder left is Joe Thurston, who apparently has made the team.

Of course, it might be a little early to say that. Most of us thought that third base was locked up with Joe Mather, but his sliding offense necessitated a return to the big camp for David Freese.

I know Mather had a double yesterday, but it wasn't a gap double, more that he got around on an inside pitch and was able to get it past the third baseman. It was nice enough, sure, but not necessarily a tell that things are coming around.

The third base battle is really the only thing to watch right now. Most of the other offensive positions are set (if you believe Colby Rasmus has done enough to get a trip north) and the pitching is starting to sort itself out as well.

Speaking of pitching, Dennys Reyes is supposed to be in camp today after his World Baseball Classic stint with Mexico. He'll probably get a good bit of work the next week to get back up to speed.

Kyle McClellan will probably go north with the team, but his spring has not been at all what you'd want to see out of a guy that may be part of the late innings. Apparently he's just a little out of whack, but it'd be nice to see that ERA drop a few runs from its lofty 10.64 height before the season started.

Otherwise, he may be on a short leash with the Cardinals since there could be a number of options in the bullpen.

With only posting the UCB Roundtable on Friday, I didn't get into the last approval ratings, so let's do that now.

Rasmus notched a 65.5 percent rating.  A lot of people didn't really know what to do with him since he had not played at that point, so he got a lot of 50s or in that range due to that fact.

I gave him a 70, figuring that his minor league performance has been good and it's nice to have a prospect everyone recognizes as a prospect.

Today, for our final installment, we'll take up Bill DeWitt.

There's been a lot of talk about ownership, which I guess is pretty standard for any team.  Do you find his cheapness a problem? Do you give him credit for the postseason runs they've had in the last decade-plus? 

Please put your ratings in the comments section as always.

Here's today's lineup against the Nationals. Chris Carpenter looks to extend his scoreless inning streak.  I seriously can't wait until we see him on a regular basis this season.

Ryan 3B
Ankiel CF
Pujols 1B
Ludwick RF
Greene SS
Duncan LF
Molina C
Carpenter P
Schumaker 2B

I think this is a pretty interesting lineup because of some comments made this weekend, where head coach Tony La Russa said he'd bat the pitcher ninth on days where there wasn't a second leadoff man.

To see Skip down in the nine hole means that La Russa is trying to find that other leadoff guy, putting in Brendan Ryan today and maybe others down the line a shot at it so he knows what they have.

Also, the United Cardinal Bloggers Radio Hour this week has been moved to its new 9:30 p.m. time on Wednesdays and to inaugurate the new slot, Post-Dispatch writer and Master of Modern Multimedia Derrick Goold will be joining us.

If you've got questions for him, leave them in the comments and we'll see if we can't get them to him.