Lee's less-than-stellar start to the season is apparently behind him, as he shuts out the Cardinals Wednesday in St. Louis

Cliff Lee. Oh, Cliff Lee. *sigh*

When this guy is on, there’s almost no stopping him. Especially with an injury-riddled Cardinals lineup.

First things first, though, I’d be remiss not to add my own poetic farewell to our beloved relief poet-pitcher.

It was a question from the start –
Could Duncan’s magic play the part
To take a 40-something arm
And make it strong, make it charm.

But batters faced just didn’t see
Bewitching power or velocity.
What they saw was pitch after pitch
That was just right to hit…and hit, and hit.

They hit them long, they hit them hard
We couldn’t watch as your ERA soared.
Games won and lost because of you
Came more than just a time or two.

So while it’s tough to send one packing,
Even the best fans of all aren’t lacking
The smarts to know it’s for the best
To send you home, put Lance to the test.

It isn’t personal, but we say adieu
And hope your struggles leave us, too.
So long, farewell,  we say goodbye
And hope for the best from the new relief guy.

And now, back to regular programming, i.e. Cliff “Complete Game” Lee. » Continue reading “Avoid Disaster AND Score Runs? Not On Lee’s Watch”

Kyle McClellan pitched a fantastic game.

Unfortunately, he was taken out of the game and the bullpen BLEW UP in the eighth inning allowing the Cards to lose 10-2. Oh, it was bad on epic proportions. It was only made worse by Miguel “The Poet” Batista showing his brilliance. I tell you, The Poet pitched so GOSH AWFUL well Ok OKAY … BAD, I have a treat for you later in the post!

Yes. That's a Sad Panda. The Phillies beat the Cards 10-2 in the eighth inning. It was sad. It made Panda sad.

McClellan pitched seven innings, giving up only five hits and one earned run. He got two strikeouts. Pretty darn good. You would think that would be enough.

But not with the St. Louis Cardinals bullpen. NO WAY.

The eighth inning featured FIVE … FIVE pitchers.

Trever Miller got things started. He was charged with two runs, but was able to get an out.

Next up, Jason Motte. Oh my goodness. Motte couldn’t find the plate. But you wanna know what he did find? The hitter. He hit Placido Polanco WITH THE BASES LOADED. Motte was also credited with two earned runs. He didn’t get a single out. He also got the honoring of having a blown save, his second of the season.

Brian Tallet came in next. He struck one out but did manage to allow one run to score.

NEXT. The Poet. We will get more into that great display of pitching in a moment. But first, let me share with you this: Batista gets credited with THREE RUNS. And no outs.

Maikel Cleto was next. He pitched an inning and a third. He got one strikeout, gave up three hits and one run.

» Continue reading “The Eighth Inning – That Was Bad”

Albert Pujols on Sunday

Skip Schumaker delivered an improbable walk-off homer in the bottom of the ninth inning, leading the Cardinals to their second consecutive 5-4 win over the Royals. The victory moved the Cards back into a tie for first place in the NL Central.

The bigger story, however, is Albert Pujols and what happened in the top of the sixth. The details, from Austin Laymance of Cardinals.com:

The inning after his homer gave the Cardinals a 3-2 lead, Pujols collided with Wilson Betemit on a play at first base after Betemit hit a slow roller up the middle. Pete Kozma fielded the ball and made a hurried throw that tailed away from first base towards the infield grass. When Pujols lurched for the ball, he made contact with a charging Betemit.

“He hit me in the wrist and shoulder and kind of jammed it back,” Pujols said. “As a first baseman it’s one of the toughest plays to make, it’s almost a bang-bang play and you can’t let the ball go. You risk it and, hopefully, don’t get hurt.”

But Pujols got hurt, and as the slugger went to the ground in obvious pain, an eerie hush fell over the crowd.

The initial report is that Albert has a sprained wrist, and he will be having further tests today. Given the Cardinals history with injury diagnosis — Allen Craig’s broken kneecap not being revealed via x-ray until a week after it happened being just the latest example — perhaps we have reason to worry. Or perhaps not, according to Bernie Miklasz in the Post-Dispatch:

Late Sunday afternoon there wasn’t a single person in this organization, in or around the Cardinals clubhouse, who thought Pujols has a broken wrist. The postgame mood was upbeat, and not just because of the win.

Another tip-off was this: Pujols was pleasant and patient in postgame interviews. If this was a catastrophic injury, chances are the organization immediately would have closed ranks and gone into the secretive, protective mode. Pujols wouldn’t have appeared before his locker. But he did. That says a lot.

Of course the game continued after Albert left, with Lance Berkman taking over at first base. Betemit scored to tie the game again at 3-3, but the Cardinals responded in the bottom of the sixth and regained the lead after Skip singled home Andrew Brown. In addition to Skip, Brown had a good day on offense as well — he was 2 for 4 and drove in the first two runs of the game on a bases-loaded single in the first. And Albert himself was 3 for 3 with a mammoth homer.

» Continue reading “Painful Win For Cardinals”

Well then. (Where do you even begin with a game like this?)

On a day when the Cards had a great chance to get back on track after the terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad series against the Brewers over the weekend, it went from bad to worse and then some, come the sixth inning.

That newly dreaded sixth inning.

Jaime Garcia had done his job, allowing two runs on eight hits through six. Not mind boggling, but solid. Certainly good enough for his 7th win on the year. Plus, he left with a 4-run lead. With only three innings to play, that should be enough. Right?

Games like this are just plain hard to watch, as the Cards lose to the Nationals 8-6.

Or not.

Now, in all honesty, the drama started in the fifth inning on back-to-back errors by everyone’s favorite short stop, Ryan Theriot. Up until that point, he was doing his fan club proud, with two hits and a run scored. But it was all for naught, once the error machine took over.

To his credit, he did start the inning-ending double play, and no runs were scored, but the fifth-inning struggles were only a sign of what was yet to come.

Garcia would likely have made it out of the sixth unscathed  if Theriot would have fielded not one, but two ground balls that went down as infield singles. I’m really not sure what happened with Theriot, but neither play was made, and Garcia ended up charged with a run.

And instead of rallying to score some insurance runs, the bats went silent … as did Cardinal Nation when the bullpen call was made for the seventh.

» Continue reading “Bullpen Woes, Dugout Decisions Cost Cards in Washington”

With a critical series against the Brewers just around the corner, it would be easy to look past the faltering Astros. But Tony La Russa spoke before Tuesday’s series opener in Houston with a clear focus — don’t give up a thing. Sitting atop the division, he said, may look pretty, but with the Brew Crew creeping up behind the Redbirds, TLR said they “just can’t afford to give up an edge.”

Tony obviously took that to heart, managing several near-disasters before they exploded!

Berkman hit his 13th home run of the season in the 1st inning

First things first, though, the Lance Berkman Fan Club was celebrating early with a big 2-run homer from Lance in his first game back since the injection for pain in his wrist.

Bottom of the first, though, Allen Craig hit the wall chasing a ball out of play. He was assisted off the field, and needed stitches to close “a deep gash” in his right knee. All I can say is, please don’t be serious!

To add insult to injury, Jake Westbrook gave up his own 2-run homer to Carlos Lee.

Not to worry, though. Remember last week when TLR used Westbrook as a pinch hitter and we all scratched our heads? Jake did too.

“I think I actually learned a little bit from my pinch-hit experience the other night,” Westbrook said. “I wanted to be aggressive, but I also wanted to get a pitch to hit. I didn’t want to just go up there and be swinging.”

You win this one, Mystery Man La Russa.

» Continue reading “Cards The Best In The Bigs”

Cardinals vs. Royals, May 22
A Game in Three Acts

ACT ONE: Yadi, Yadi, Yadi, Yadi!

It was such a normal game in the beginning. Starters Sean O’Sullivan and Jaime Garcia each allowed a hit in the first inning and retired the side in the second. Albert grounded into his 14th double play of the year. (It’s sad that’s become normal.)

In the third, Yadier Molina led off with a double, which Daniel Descalso followed with a double of his own. 1-0 Cardinals. Two batters later, Allen Craig launched a homer into left-center that prompted far less man-crush gushing from Dan McLaughlin and others than Matt Holliday had the day before. 3-0 Cardinals.

Then came the fourth. After Lance Berkman and Colby Rasmus walked, up stepped Yadi. He hit it deep into the right field corner and, with his famous Molina speed, quickly ran around the bases. LB and Colby easily scored; Yadi headed to third. When the throw from Eric Hosmer sailed over the base, Yadi sauntered home as well. 6-1 Cardinals.

Officially, it was a triple with an error. Really, it was a Yadi inside-the-park homer, and we all know it.

The next inning, the Cardinals added some dramatic tension — just to keep things interesting with that 6-1 lead. After Craig singled, he was given the rest of the day off as Tyler Greene pinch-ran for him. Albert singled as well, to continue his streak of reaching base in every game he’s played at Kauffman Stadium — now 33.

» Continue reading “An Ugly Win Is Still A Win”

Photo: www.CardinalsCandids.com

Sometimes a game is just ugly.

Luckily, the Cardinals haven’t had many in 2011 — this was the third, although Jake Westbrook’s now been the starter in two. (April 2 was his other one, when the Cards lost to the Padres 11-3, while the other ugly game was the 13-8 loss to the Diamondbacks on April 12.) Last night, a 53-minute rain delay didn’t help Westbrook but he’s not using that as an excuse anyway.

So a 6-1 score after three innings seemed like the perfect time to finally let Ryan Franklin pitch again. And, like his last appearance 10 days before that, he actually did OK in his first inning of work. He allowed two hits, but no runs.

Then came his second inning. No Ryan Theriot to blame this time — it was all Franky. He allowed a single, a triple, a single, a triple (nice pattern there) and an RBI-ground out. Four hits, four runs and the Cards fans on Twitter were in an understandable tizzy.

Maybe mop-up duty isn’t the role for Franky either. To help him out, though, Miranda and I have some suggestions on other Cardinals jobs that Ryan Franklin might be better suited for than pitching.

• » Continue reading “Ryan Franklin, We Have Some Ideas For You”

Cards beat the Cubs, 6-4

As Cardinals fans, we saw a lot happen in last night’s 6-4 win over the Cubs.

Chris Carpenter finally earned a victory despite giving up 13 hits, Daniel Descalso cranked a bases-loaded two-RBI single that was the difference in the game, Jon Jay made a stellar catch in right field, Eduardo Sanchez earned his fourth save and Joe Pettini won his managerial debut filling in for ailing Tony La Russa.

Whew … eventful game.

But take a look at how the Chicago sports media is covering the story.

“Pujols takes center stage in Cards 6-4 victory,” read the Chicago Tribune headline. “Hendry-Pujols hug causes stir before Cubs loss to Cardinals,” says the Chicago Sun-Times. Yes, Albert — thankfully — had a good night, with his first four-hit night of the season (one double, three singles) to raise his batting average to a season-high .268. But it’s that batting practice hug and conversation with the Cubs general manager that’s apparently the most important factor of all. It’s not a surprise — remember that Forbes magazine did report back in March that Albert would be a Cub next year. And, to be fair, both Bernie Miklasz and Joe Strauss wrote about The Hug as well, although it wasn’t the centerpiece of the game coverage. But thinking about next year is certainly a Cubs trait, and it must be true for the media that covers them as well.

» Continue reading “Cards Win, But Only Albert Matters?”

THIS is where a ball is supposed to end up when it's thrown

1. The Cardinals are definitely a typical Tony La Russa “play a hard nine” team this season. Despite an ugly first three innings, with two throwing errors each by Chris Carpenter and Yadier Molina, the offense battled back and tied the game in the sixth.

And, even though they were trailing 8-6 going into the bottom of the ninth, Matt Holliday represented the winning run when he came to the plate with one out — thanks to a pinch-hit homer for Jon Jay and a walk by Albert. Unfortunately, Matt grounded into a double play to end the game — rather ironic for the man who now has a .413 average.

2. With the four errors last night, the Cards now lead the majors in three categories: batting average, GIDP and errors. Both the Cards and Rangers have 28 errors.

3. In a game with four errors, none were by Ryan Theriot — and he had a game-tying single in the sixth. Just wanted to point out the positive.

4. The Marlins have some scary-good hitters this series. Emilio Bonifacio is 6 for 12, Mike Stanton is 5 for 15 with three RBI (including what turned out to be the game-winning HR last night) and Gaby Sanchez is 8 for 14 with six RBI.

» Continue reading “Four Game Thoughts: One For Each Error”

Happy Easter, Reds! Enjoy the nice gift of yesterday’s 5-3 win that the Cardinals gave you, thanks to an ugly eighth inning.

Can we blame the rain? Can we blame The Poet, Miguel Batista, who is becoming a human rain delay? Can we blame Brandon Phillips?

Actually, there was plenty of blame to go around for the loss (Phillips is actually blameless in this one), and it all came after the 42-minute rain delay before the start of that pivotal inning. Truthfully, the Cardinals didn’t have much margin for error. They only had a 3-2 lead at the time, although that did put Chris Carpenter in line for his first win of the year. And as our pal Lance Berkman said, “We were living on the edge because we kept giving them chances and they came through.”

So how ugly was the eighth inning? Let’s count the ways.

1. » Continue reading “Could That Eighth Inning Have Been Any Uglier?”