Are You Ready to be Heartbroken?

Old song, covered in the 80s by someone else…..that’s as specific as I can get without google.

Naw. I was ready at the beginning of the season. That game sucked. But meh. It’s been a great season.

Sending the Colonel back out there was questionable. But it dodn’t matter. We couldn’t push a run across the plate. Ankiel was more of the goat in this one. Please Tony, let him play Center field.

TLR will keep this team playing hard until the end because that’s just the way he does things…yes, the odds are long, but who knows what will happen in the last month.

If nothing else, the kids have a lot to play for because really, none of them are guaranteed a job in ’09…with a suddenly productive farm system, and over 30 million of additional payroll available, the Cardinals will have some options going into next season…this is a far better situation then this team faced in the winters of 06 and 07, IMO

off of Kicking TV’s was playing as I checked VEB just now.

Not the same as the title, but seemingly as apt.

Get ’em tonight, redbirds. There are only so many nights left.

States that Rasmus will not be called up this year.

I think that is a good decision. He needs to get healthy, take the winter off, and come back refreshed next year. Hopefully both he and the team realize there is no reason to rush his promotion to the Majors.

Recent memory recalls many examples when teams made it to the postseason against long odds.

The Cards played pretty timid last night…… they kept waiting for someone else to get the key hit…. but it never came. They pretty much lost the game in the first four innings when they couldn’t get a run across.

You know they’ll keep fighting till the end of the season. Wish Barton had not been hurt….. would have liked to have seen him in tonights lineup. Oh well….. Go Cards.

What would you all do with Skip and Ankiel? One will sit for sure, replaced by Mather, but would you try to get them both out of the lineup? I probably would.

Think I’d go like this tonight:

Izturis SS
Mather CF
Pujols 1B
Ludwick RF
Glaus 3B
Molina C
Lopez LF
Waino P
Miles 2B

roto scroll bar says carp may be weeks away due to shoulder stiffness, tightness, whatever. raise your hand if you are surprised!!! raise it twice if you think we’ve got another mulder on our hands!!!!

than Chris Carpenter’s. How does that make you feel?

I think the thing that’s different now is that in the past Walt Jocketty always had some kind of deal in the hopper. And when it came out, so unexpectedly, yet so welcome, it was a tremendous boost for both the fans and the players. I feel like the current front office is unlikely to ever pull rabbits out of the hat. No help is coming. It’s not on the way. That’s basically the message, and it takes some getting used to.

I agree that the farm system needs to be the priority. But I also get the feeling that there isn’t going to be a major free agent signing to shore of the middle infield; the pickup of a topline starter; or even a super set-up man or LOOGy.

The team was blessed with weak competition in the division over the past decade. But the other teams are not sitting still. I very much hope the farm produces some of the team’s star players in the next year or two. But let’s not kid ourselves that pitchers like Jaime Garcia or Mitchell Boggs are the next Clayton Kershaw.

The intermediate period will be a supreme test of the front office to truly transition to self-sustaining system. It won’t be easy, and all the while they have to keep their eyes on No. 5, rapidly approaching free agency. Oh, and the third-winningest manager in ML history is probably leaving soon, too. We live in interesting times.

Though it is better than not being in the race at all..

At 4.5 games back and 5.5 should we lose tonight we’re a long shot to make the playoffs…pretty much where we’ve been all month. This leaves us in a constant state of flux not knowing whether to go for it, or to play for next year. There’s certainly a part of me that would love to see what Lohse and/or Looper could return…but there’s another part of me that fears doing that and ending up a game or two out of the wildcard.

Ultimately I know that this organization won’t cash in their chips when they’re still “in it”…but you have to wonder what would be the best decision. This seems to be a whole ’nother opportunity costs discussion.

Albert failed to hit a sac fly in the third that would have made the game 2-1, then made a bonehead decision to throw the ball to second for the final out of the fifth, thereby allowing the third run. Tony’s decision wasn’t too smart either but it ranks behind both of Albert’s executions earlier in the game

As far as the season, there is still plenty of hope left. The Padres just beat Webb and Haren so anything is possible. A loss tonight will erase any optimism left

So Tony says Rasmus “hasn’t earned a promotion” but Randy Flores has? I can agree that he hasn’t had a great year, but I just don’t understand the need to go out of your way to say that he doesn’t deserve to be called up. Couldn’t we just politely say that we are too deep in the OF or something?

Hopefully Young Centerfielder has a thick skin.

considering I’ve been a strong build-from-within advocate for a few years and that’s exactly what we’re getting. And the lumps we’re getting are lumps I expected.

On another topic, I’m getting to the point that when Ankiel comes up to hit with men on base, I head for the kitchen to get a beer, or to take the trash out. I’m expecting Ks from him, and getting them. Last night’s AB early, immediately following a rare poor AB from Albert, was really infuriating. Rick can’t hit high inside stuff but he can’t lay off it either. And clearly the Brewers know that, as Sheets kept pounding him there and getting results. Why Rick is hitting 4th right now is a mystery.

Each of these two would have to clear waivers to have any hope of getting a player we would want. For example, to protect against NYM getting them, LAD would put in a claim then offer Juan Pierre and his contract. Walt might even make the claim out of spite.

Just because a team makes a claim, doesn’t mean they have to make a realistic offer. I seriously doubt we’ll be able to find a trading partner for either player, but it is worth a shot if we lose tonight.

Stop moping around – the season is not over.

Let us turn, as we often find ourselves doing at times like these, to the pantheon of great motivational speeches:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtP3whUbgZE&feature=related

… Camera Obscura has a song called “Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken,” which i think is a reference to a John Cusack movie? yeah, it was Say Anything. i don’t recall the actual line in the movie, but i’m guessing that it comes from there.

as for the Cards, i didn’t expect this much out of them. if they finish the season with the same winning % they have now, that’s 89 wins. i don’t think much of anybody thought they’d be flirting with 90.

given their head-to-head performances with the Brewers and Cubs, they don’t really deserve to be in the playoffs, and i won’t be broken up if they don’t make it. but it’s still been a great year.

A thinking man’s alt-indie-dude…played him a lot at Ithaca College radio in the 80’s…

Things look grim after last night’s spectacle, but there’s still a lot of baseball left. The team has scrapped and fought all year just to stay in the hunt, overcoming setbacks (Pujols’ injury, Wainwright’s injury, Izzy’s meltdown, Carp’s lack of impact, etc.) that would’ve been too much for a lesser group of guys; I don’t expect them to quit now.

But if this is indeed “all she wrote” for the 2008 Cardinals, I can’t say I feel disappointed. How many of us really thought in March that this club would be playing hugely meaningful games in late August? Or that Ryan Ludwick would play MVP-worthy ball all year? That Todd Wellemeyer, Braden Looper, and Kyle Lohse would all reach double-digits in wins? That Yadi Molina would hit .300 (!) in addition to his usual sterling defense? That we’d come out so far ahead on the Rolen-for-Glaus swap?

At the end of the day, maybe this overachieving bunch just isn’t quite talented enough to hang with the Cubs and Brewers this year. But they’ve been great fun to watch, and I appreciate that the club has been able to contend and be competitive in what we all knew was a rebuilding year. This season gives me hope that the “rebuilding” won’t take as long as many of us feared.

and the Cardinals are no worse off then they were before the series. (Other than having two less games to gain ground) The Cardinals are still very much in the wild card race. Tonight’s game is a must win. Buy, trade, steal if you must, but the Cards need a W tonight

They announced the rosters and Rasmus is off of it. I don’t understand this at all. They don’t call him up in Sept cause he didn’t earn it. So why wouldn’t you send him to the AFL to make up for lost a bats so he can earn it. Why wouldn’t you send him to the AFL to gauge how far his progress is so you can make decisions on dealing the gluttony of outfield.

But overall pretty down about that stink bomb last night. I think a loss tonight puts me squarely in the resignation room with Red Baron.

I do still think Ned Yost has cracked the whip well before the final turn with CC, and may have to deal with the consequences of that as he reaches the final furlong. Plus I really felt he killed the team last September and may be capable of doing it again. Still. the difference now is that I’m thinking that we are no longer the team that is going to be in the best position to take advantage of that, even if they do actually slip up.

Overall, I am going to appreciate this team no matter what. I think they have come pretty close to maxing out on their potential, really. I try to keep that in mind.

I am now very close to thinking that the Cards should shut Carpenter down for the rest of the season regardless of their chances to make the playoffs this year. I just keep thinking that his career is more important than a chance to get to the playoffs. If there is no more risk in it than when he is fully healthy ok, send him out there. But if not, why risk it

my high hopes were dashed, albeit not altogether. tonight is another huge game, and it’ll be interesting to see if we can avoid being embarrassed at home again by the Milawahkay brewers. If nothing else, I think we will at least stay within striking distance until the last couple of weeks, but will barely miss the playoffs in all likelihood. which doesn’t mean the rest of the season won’t be very entertaining, interesting, and more just like the rest of the season has been. although they haven’t really done it all year, how thrilling would it be to see them put together like a 7 or 8 game win streak? they deserve it for playing with a lot of vigor. Also, we have two extremely good seasons to watch with Pujols and Ludwick thudding away at the ball. Since this has been a supposed overachieving team, this may bolster Pujols’ (and maybe even Ludwicks?) chances at an MVP award, as meaningless as that may be. Not to mention we have two very interesting hurlers in the bullpen in Perez and McClellan, and it’ll be interesting to see how things shape up for ’09 in the remaining weeks.

It feels like every time we say this team ‘must step up,’ ‘must win this series,’ etc., they don’t. And there’s a reason for that.

Ankiel is symbolic of how the team performs in the clutch – it simply doesn’t. You could easily refer to this team as ‘the anti-clutch.’ I’d love to see how well, since May, the Cards have performed in so-called ‘must-win’ games.

We know they’ve stunk against Milwaukee and Chicago since May. Their record in the closing game of a series is atrocious. They not only seem to struggle against top-line pitchers, but fold completely. And while the Cubs and Brewers sweep the teams they should, the Cardinals can never close them out.

We have a lot of guys with somewhat gaudy stats, but by and large disappear when we need them most. The team is never going to get another Pujols or Waino – but when Mo goes shopping in the offseason, finding players who thrive under pressure should be at the top of his list. I still agree with the decision to let Eckstein go – but he was one of those guys. Trade one of our big HR/big whiff OFs for a Matt Holliday-type (’08 splits)… yessir, that’s my recommendation.

must win?

So we got that going for us…

may be winding down, i’m still left with the thought, “whew…what a ride!” If one thinks hard enough, we can assemble an amazing play or game for almost every single player. I dont know if that is normal in a season, but it sure is special.

it would sure be nice to see them play some teams that are above .500 for a change. In August so far they have played 9 games against teams above .500 and I’m including the Astros that are barely over and have a 6-3 record in those games and 14 games against some of the worst teams in the NL going 11-3 record in those games.

I not trying to take away that they are a really good team because they are …but what is setting them apart from us is that they do dominate the weak teams in the NL. Especially the Pirates who they have flat out dominated this year. I would say that the Cubs chance of winning the division is at about 95% right now but looking at their schedule they have quite a few games coming up against teams over .500 for a change. (Phillies, Astros, Cardinals, Brewers, and Mets). It will be interesting to see how they do in the month of September and to see if they will still be the favorites in the NL come September 28. Plus we all saw what happened to the Mets last year………

one thing I have noticed is that coming back from off days, the boys look a little lethargic. last week w/ Yadi and last night w/ Albert. it seems like their heads are really not in the game the first game back from an off day.
(just something I have noticed lately, or maybe it’s just coincidence)

Ryan Braun is wearing a special uniform to commemorate the last STL-MIL series.

link

apologizing for the apparently super unlucky haikus that I started last night. I did not realize that the number of haikus and the suck quotient of the team were proportionally related. It will not happen again… or at least until the games aren’t so darn important.