Catching Up with the Cardinals

Hello, my name is Cardinal70. 

You might remember me from such posts as Reading The T-Shirts and Casey In Today's Baseball... 

OK, maybe it hasn't been that long, but it's been a while since I've had a chance to write about the Cardinals.  Since we have a week's worth of games, I'm not going to sit down and talk about all of them. 

We'll just hit the Heroes and Goats, and then look at the overview and what's coming next.

Monday at Atlanta (Win 3-2)
Hero: Joel Pineiro
Goat: Albert Pujols

Notes: Normally, Brendan Ryan's 0 for 4 would have given him the Goat tag, but his spectacular defense in this game spares him.  Pujols was 1-5 but left six men on—something that could have easily haunted the Cards.

Tuesday at Atlanta (Loss 2-1)
Hero: Yadier Molina
Goat: Kyle McClellan

Notes: Kyle Lohse had an outstanding game, but he did walk four which is why Molina got the nod.

Wednesday at Atlanta (Win 5-3)
Hero: Ryan Franklin
Goat: Colby Rasmus

Notes: The closer doesn't get the Hero tag very often, so since he went four outs—I'll give it to him.  Adam Wainwright would have been in line...but five walks is not good at all.

Thursday at Washington (Win 9-4)
Hero: Albert Pujols
Goat: Joe Thurston

Notes: Nice to see Tyler Greene make his debut, even though it came at the expense of Ryan heading to the DL.

Friday at Washington (Win 6-2)
Hero: Albert Pujols
Goat: Skip Schumaker

Notes: Albert's two extra runs gave him the slightest of nods over Chris Duncan.

Saturday at Washington (Loss 6-1)
Hero: Colby Rasmus
Goat: Chris Duncan

Notes: Duncan's 0 for 4 was bad enough, but the error didn't help matters.  I just missed watching Colby's homer, sitting down to the computer and catching it on Twitter.

Sunday at Washington, rained out

Monday vs. Philadelphia (Loss 6-1)
Hero: Joe Thurston
Goat: Kyle Lohse

Notes: If he's not using the HBP as an excuse, then I can't either.  But, I do think that had to have some effect, and a Cardinal starter has to be fully healthy to even have a chance against Ryan Howard.

So that brings us to the present. 

After the jump, more talk and looking forward to tonight's game.
 
Of course, the biggest news from yesterday was Rick Ankiel crashing into the wall. 

My following of this was a testament to modern technology.  Being that I didn't have a chance to watch the game, my first inkling that something was wrong was from Facebook statuses of my Cardinal friends mentioning praying for Rick. 

So, I flipped to the Post-Dispatch site and saw the picture of him being taken off the field, which was quite scary.  After reading that story, I got my Twitter account up so that I could see if there had been updates and saw where the doctors thought he was basically OK. 

Amazing how things have changed in just two or three years, huh?

The good news is, though, that he looks to be OK. 

He's already out of the hospital, though I expect he's a few days away from getting back on the field.  The Cards just about have to make a move, though, since their bench has just gotten even smaller. 

With Ankiel out, you have only three batters, and one of those is Jason LaRue who won't be used to guard against a Molina injury.  That means the bench would basically be one of the Greenes (Tyler or, if he's not ready to play in the field, Khalil) and either Thurston or Brian Barden...whomever isn't starting that night. 

Not many options for Tony LaRussa.

The Cards stand at 17-9, 2.5 ahead of the Cubs and a game and a half behind the Dodgers for the best record in baseball.  The Cards and LA are the only teams that haven't lost 10 times yet this season.

What's really interesting is looking at run differential. 

The Dodgers are +46 and the Cards +31. 

Who is next on the list?  T

he leader of the NL East? 

A second place team? 

Nope...it's the Pirates with a +16 even though they sit in fifth in the Central.  The Phillies, second in the NL East, are the only other team in positive double digits.

Tonight, the Cards try to break out of this little slump they are in (when you lose 22 percent of your season's total losses in a row—it's a slump).  Wainwright goes for the Cardinals and Brett Myers for the Phillies.

Wainwright has struggled at times this season with his command and hasn't been the dominant pitcher we saw last year, but he's been able to get out of jams and not hurt the team too much. 

The Phillies haven't done much with him in his career, and he's one of the few Cardinal hurlers who hasn't been completely raked over the coals by Ryan Howard.

Myers is 2-0 with three no decisions in his last five outings against St. Louis.  This group has hit the long ball against him, though. 

Pujols has hit two off of him, which is not surprising, but Schumaker with two as well? 

That's crazy talk.

Looking forward to seeing a lot of the game tonight, and I promise it won't be a week before I return to this corner of cyberspace no matter how much you may beg me.