I sure do it a lot. Yadi was safe by a mile. And it cost us a run and an out with runs on first and third. Ok. That’s all im going to say about that.

Three left handers comming up next. Good chance we wont see Duncan in left field until we get to Milwaukee. He looks worse this year than last. It’s like he was talking fielding pratice with Soriano. After his rookie year he played winter ball in left. And he looked servicable in left field the first half. Only made two errors last year; didn’t take bad jumps on every ball. He still had is akward moments. But nothing like this year. Im afraid after not playing the last half of the season or much of spring training that he lost whatever he gained by playing winter ball. Sucks, but unless his bat picks up we can not have him out there in left field playing that bad. (To be fair, here I should mention the OF assist)

Oh and Piniaro. Don’t stare down the Pitching Coaches son when you are getting hammered. Showing up teammates on the field is never a wise idea. Yes he cost you two runs. But you could have easily have been hit for more without the errors.

... that was one mad dash!

First of all, unlike many, I’m not magnetically attached to the fact that Ankiel has been relatively successful vs. lefties so far in his young career. Too few PA’s to attach any significance to it.

Fuentes, who is a tough lefty, owned Ankiel on the first two pitches. I really thought he had no prayer of even getting his bat on the ball. He looked THAT BAD on the first 2 pitches. Based on his relative inexperience and how bad he looked on the first 2 pitches, I was impressed that he was able to get his bat on the ball and hit a weak grounder to 2nd. I didn’t think he had even a chance at that and the fact that he did put his bat on the ball allowed Pujols to score. Otherwise, it’s 2 outs, runner on 3rd and Glaus up.

Also, Helton made a helluva play there. I’m pretty sure he pulled his foot off first to make the throw home, as he should have but the ump called the out anyway. That 2nd baseman has to recognize the situation and concede the play at first if he has to.

you mention villone’s 87 mph fastball… and then you mention mulder’s 87 mph fastball.

mulder’s got a slight platoon advantage via lefties, maybe he could carve out a future as a lefty reliever. unfortunately, it seems like he would need to go to another organization to do so, as flores and villone are pitching well.

question – and i know this has been asked before but i just would like to clarify – what happens when mulder’s rehab assignment is up? i know they don’t have to call him up to the big club but is there anywhere he can still pitch? extended spring training? i’m assuming he would have to pass through waivers if we wanted to send him down to memphis on a permanent basis, and with a salary like that i have a hard time believing anyone would claim him.

i know he’s a sunk cost right now, but i’d hate to see us get absolutely nothing out of the guy by releasing him…

Albert figured out what to do when all those ground balls stop finding holes. Leave it to him to make the answer score from second. I don’t think he could fall out of bed without either knocking in or scoring a run.

Batting in the fourth inning with two runners on, Pineiro swung awkwardly at the first pitch from Colorado starter Ubaldo Jimenez. Pineiro took the 95 mph fastball to the right forearm, but because he swung it was ruled a strike and the Cardinals pitcher had to continue the at-bat.

Being he didn’t last long after that pitch (but what a great at-bat, talk about grit).

It’s interesting that about half the career leaders in strikeouts per 9 are currently active—the Cardinals have two others in the top 100 besides Villone (Matt Clement and Chris Carpenter). Strike out rates have steadily climbed the last hundred years, peaking today at about 6.5 per game.

This steady rise in strikeout rates has made me curious whether the HR increase in recent years was the product of a change in batting strategies. Specifically, if players are simply more aggressive and hard swinging, they’ll hit more HRs and strikeout more (think of this as an all or nothing strategy).

Strikeouts have doubled since the 1930s and 1940s, when there were 3 strikeouts per game (roughly). There were roughly .50 HRs hit per game in the ‘30s and ‘40s; there are 1.10 per game now.

I ran a quick regression using yearly NL data from 1919 to 2007 regressing HR/g on SO/g. A strikeout is “worth” (predicts) .14 HRs per game. That means that we’d expect .90 HRs per game now based on the increase in strikeouts alone—a little shy of the actual 1.10 level, but not far off.

Is a change in batting strategy a major reason for the HR increase, and not (cough) other factors? Has anyone done a study to test for era-related changes in batting strategies?

I’d give Albert the night off:

Skippy CF
Barton LF
Glaus 1B
Ludwick CF
Molina C
Ryan 3B
Miles 2B
Looper
Izturis SS

I’d consider replacing Rick with Skip but neither one of them can hit LHP right now, so it’s a toss up. If you did put Rick in the lineup:

Barton LF
Ryan 3B
Glaus 1B
Ludwick RF
Ankiel CF
Molina C
Miles 2B
Looper
Izturis SS

Didn’t get a chance to read through the game threads from last night so it might have been mentioned.

Yesterday Jerry Crasnick did his ‘That’s Debatable’ column on espn.com.

It’s a discussion on how the NL Central is playing out. Some good thoughts in there. Then smack in the middle I see this and literally laugh out loud.

ESPN Management (CT): Umm…...what does this have to do with the Red Sox and Yankees?

SportsNation Jerry Crasnick: Management, Let’s take a break with the sarcasm, OK?

It’s the simple things…

According to B-R

Pujols has no hits this year with the count 0-2 (4 PA, 1 SO) and 3-2 (22 PA, 14 AB, 8 W, 4 SO).

Something to watch for.

Did y’all see this little tidbit in this morning’s Post-Dispatch article on the “lessons learned” from the terrible 2004 draft class?

Their first-round pick, pitcher Chris Lambert, was the player to be named later in last summer’s deal with Detroit that netted Mike Maroth. Lambert … is 4-1 with a 2.48 ERA for Detroit’s Class AAA affiliate.

ARGH….

Hope he can get some “pop” back into the Cards bat…... via advice….. Will he be coaching 1st base as well?

Glad to see Kahrl’s article – this kernal had been bouncing around my head lately.

The increased IBBs are particularly head-scratching given the marked improvement in cleanup hitters (Ankiel/Glaus/Ludwick vs. Edmonds/Encarnacion).

Seems another example of “conventional wisdom” leading to “lousy baseball strategy”. At least the Cards seem to be on the winning end of this one.

going to give us the ability to put links in our Sigs during the last upgrade?

Hit by pitch, bad back, short outing = ???

reminds me of some tendencies I’ve noticed Rick has in his approach at the plate.

Pitch selection aside, two things that are pretty easily observed about Rick in the box is:

1) In big situations, he starts ‘twitching’. He starts wagging the bat fast, his hands are moving around. He seems ‘amped up’ for the AB.

2) He refuses to ever call timeout. He freezes himself in the box if the pitcher takes took long to throw the pitch. Basically, once he steps in that box, he isn’t stepping out no matter how long the pitcher is going to take.

Neither of these are that big of a deal except I think it shows how ‘young’ he is as a hitter. For most MLB hitters, by the time they reach the Bigs, they’ve developed an ‘internal clock’ as to how long to stay in the box before their body gets out of the rythem they need to hit with.