whether it be this weekend, or weeks down the line, and the disappointment (or jubilation) wears off, I am going to look back at it with fondness. Even if we do fail in our ultimate goal, hopefully time will make the Holliday play, and any other perceived misgivings by the GOB fade away and in distant memory. Hopefully the Rasmus and Pujols walkoffs, Ryan’s coming of age, Skip’s transition, Carpenter’s best stuff, and Wainwright’s progression into a true ace will be the things we remember most.

It has been a memorable season, and hopefully there are a few more memorable moments left to witness.

this one hurts. it really, really hurts

I just can’t get over how this team did a complete U-turn after that great August and running away with the divison. It just seems like this has been boiling for over 3 weeks and last night was the explosion. It’s like the guys just can’t shake “The Slump” that has been eating them for a month now. Is it the team chemistry, is it the coaching or has it just been bad luck? I just can’t pinpoint it. We have the two best starters in the NL, we have the best hitter in all of baseball but somehow something has changed and they have become snakebit at every turn and they just can’t shake it.

I have gone from mad (earlier tonight) to now just being confused about how this team has just flat out lost their mojo. It hasn’t been something that has happened over night. This has been going on for a month now. I just don’t get it. It’s like this team has fell in a black hole and just cannot pull themselves out.

But it has been a memorable season and I don’t want it to end. I hope this drives the guys to dig in and reclaim their mojo and pull out of this funk. We have one more chance on Saturday. Lets win this thing.

…ever since I started watching baseball. Right around the time McGwire became a Cardinal. (Say what you will about the steroid-era players, but they drew a crowd to baseball [myself included] and were, ultimately, great for sport publicity…but that’s a whole ’nother topic)

But 2003 was the first time I actually started following the team. I didn’t really invest much time in researching the minor leagues until last year. 2004 was a disappointment in the end. 2006 was ecstasy in the end. And time will tell where this year falls on that chart…

Great post, Dan.

And when did the shittiness start?

The only thing I am hoping for the rest of this season is that the fans don’t give Holliday a hard time when we get back. Incessant booing or negative comments towards him are not going to increase the chances that he re-signs. He has said, since he got to STL, that this is by far the best baseball atmosphere he has ever played in. This is our chance to prove that and not let one play seal the Matt Holliday Story in St. Louis.

91-71 with a Central Division title, two Cy Young candidates, and the MVP is a damn fine season. We also solidified our middle infield for the next ~3 years and got a small glimpse at what our future All-Star centerfielder is capable of. Only one team is going to finish with a win this season and we do still have a chance to do that and remember the team that ended our dream season in ’04 came back from an 0-3 hole.

The thing that’s hurting us this post season is our inability to get those 2-out hits to score runs. Those were the hits we got in 2006 and over the summer and what we’re missing now. Obviously our closer crapping the bed doesn’t help but these games were still winnable.

I was so frustrated last night but at this point, I’ll just “take it one game at a time.” I think if they manage to come back from being down 2 games and that LaRussa has the evidence he needs to justify not having Franklin close we’ll be in a better position in the NLCS.

On a personal note, I do have to admit that I am now regretting my decision less to sell my tickets to the Saturday game instead of making the long trip down to STL.

and it makes me sad to think we could get swept out of the playoffs and more fans won’t get exposed to the awesomeness of Colby Rasmus.

That said, it’s easier on me when the Cardinals aren’t involved and I’m not so worked up. It’s better for my personal property as well. I’ll be sticking around watching all the playoffs even if the Cardinals don’t win. I love the Cardinals but I’ll settle for good playoff baseball.

The two major holes identified during the September slump have been exposed by the Dodgers: a streaky offense and a questionable closer. Not surprising I guess.

As for the specifics of last nights game, the offense should get the largest share of blame for the loss. No team is going to win many 2-1 games. No doubt Holliday deserves some blame as well for the dropped ball (and Molina for the passed ball as well), but since August Franklin has successfully proved that he is a Dave Veres-like closer, with a similarly fine line between success and failure. When Franklin needed to buckle down and get 1 out to win the game, he failed to throw strikes and in the process lost the game (and that is not Matt Holliday’s fault).

So, where do the Cards go from here?

Well there is at least 1 game left this Saturday in St. Louis. Regardless of its outcome, I think the Cards are pretty much done for this season. LA is too good of a team (and the Cards offense to inconsistent) to expect that St. Louis will take 3 straight to win the series.

As for the long term, the primary focus of the off-season should be on evaluating the offense, finding ways to raise both its absolute quality and consistency. An off the cuff thought- the depth of this offense rises and falls with Ryan Ludwick. In 2008 he provided the necessary 3rd upper-tier offensive player to pair with Glaus and Pujols. In 2009, Ludwick’s struggles made the Cardinal offense concentrated first on Pujols and after the mid-season trades, on Pujols and Holliday. Off-season evaluation should focus on a way to add two quality bats to pair with Albert. Holliday can be part of this pair. It is unclear whether Ryan Ludwick should be. Mark DeRosa is not the type of offensive player (certainly not after a wrist injury at 34) who can fill the need and therefore should not be resigned.

the Cards’ meltdown in the 9th yesterday or the meltdown by Cards’ fans everywhere (particularly at the p-d). Bad loss. It happened. We don’t need to get over it but the team does. The Astros had a bigger meltdown in the playoffs in 2005 and got over it after a day off by an extremely well-pitched game by Roy Oswalt. We’ve got Pineiro going Saturday and we can get over yesterday’s loss w/ a well-pitched game from JP. It’s as simple as that.

Two things I have loved
Most of my life
Cardinal baseball, and my wife
But over the years
I have come to see
That both of them sometimes
Shit on me

I’m still mad at Holliday and Franklin, but perspective has set in. The team actually hit lefthanded pitching, just not well enough. Carpenter grinded through his start, and Wainwright sparkled.

Padilla, not Newcombe or Drysdale or Hershisher is pitching on Saturday. And Billingsley or Wolf is scheduled for Sunday.

One game at a time, and I still like the chances Saturday.

It’s tough to find the words to describe how I feel right now, and I’m sure the players feel the same way. I think I’ve been more frustrated watching these two games than any other back-to-back games in recent memory. Holliday with the bat on his shoulder in Game 1. Holliday dropping the ball in Game 2. It’s easy to forget his home run last night, especially in the face of a quiet offense, with those darker images looming. In the end I feel the worst for Wainwright, as he’s had two well-pitched games result in losses for the team in consecutive starts.

In the end, I’m going to pray that the sea of red comes floodingg over the Dodgers in St. Louis and carries us back to LA for a Game 5. Despite how frustrated I am right now, I’ll still put on my rally cap and root for the mojo of Christy Mathewson to help Piñeiro put on ground ball laden show Saturday. I’m probably just waxing poetic, but here’s hoping I can continue to do so well into October.

Solid post, DanUpBaby, helps the day to get moving.

So there was lots of bad luck to go around in Games 1 and 2, but Corey Rainbow was particularly unlucky when he got thrown out at 3rd base in the 7th inning on his double. I didn’t watch the game with sound (and was around to read the game thread), but did the final analysis (by anyone) focus on the awesome play Loney made to cut off Furcal’s throw?

There was no doubt about it, Furcal was throwing home. Loney jumped in the air to cut it off when he saw DeRosa was going to be safe. I saw the TBS replays of LaRussa whacking his hat in anger, and they showed Rasmus talking to various guys in the dugout. Rasmus was probably saying “Furcal was throwing home!”.

I’m just curious to hear what the conventional wisdom and analyzers had to say. It should have been full credit to Loney for an awesome play, and there should have been none of the “Never get thrown out at 3rd base” CW nonsense.

But as I think about this AM, I think about all the fun this team has given me througout the year, all the great memories, including my incredible trip to new Busch for the first time ( thanks to Garrett, Dan McL and Al H. for the pregame field and dugout visit and the 5 innings in the booth…awesome experience!) this has been an incredibly fun team to ride along with. And we will be for a while, I think.

As bad as I felt, I’ll bet that Matt and Ryan felt even worse. I sincerely hope that the fans in St.L Saturday give them the welcome they deserve and don’t boo them or any such cubbie like shit.

So, to borrow from the Big Book of Baseball Cliches’ , I’ll tip my cap to the Dodgers, they capitalized on a mistake and made the plays when they had to. That and it ain’t over til it’s over.

I’ll be pulling for our beloved Redbirds with all I have Saturday, and win or lose I’ll still wear my Cardinal Red and wear it with pride, and anyone don’t like it can kiss my tailfeathers.

This doesn’t mean I won’t curse like a sailor with Tourrette’s if we lose…LOL

the temptation to start Carp and/or Wainer on short rest. According to b-r neither has ever started a game on 3 days rest in their MLB careers. While you can point to isolated instances of short rest success, it is much more often a bad idea. Neither is a sinker ball pitcher and those are the most likely to succeed on short rest. Plus, the primary advantage the Dodgers have over us is their bullpen and pitching starters on short rest just means more bullpen innings.

I don’t think we have much choice but to hope for a CG from JP, a combined effort of Smoltz and Lohse in game 4, and a fully rested Carp for game 5 with Wainer as the closer.

He takes it even further; perhaps teaching us to lose is what baseball is for.
I like this thought in general, but that’s as far as I’m willing to go with it. I don’t want to get too authentic right now, in a Heideggerian sense. After a brief period of stunned silence and shock last night, I snapped out of it and decided that we are not two games in the hole with our season probably over (the fine single malt helped a lot with this development); rather, we Cardinals find ourselves striving for a unique goal, to win three games in a row. And it can be done. If a cartoon coyote runs off a cliff, he just kinda keeps going until he looks down. So why look down? Screw that. Let’s win Saturday and keep going.
For inspiration I would like to direct you all to this fantastic collection of motivational posters, based upon a shining examplar of “give ’em hell” style kick-assery and derring-do, the one and only Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill.

Because this thing ain’t even close to over yet, friends. The Dodgers threw their two best starters at us (in LA, mind you), and only horrendous luck kept us from coming out of there with a split. Now we come home for two, and we get to hit against Vincente Padilla and Chad Billingsley. I think those two facts alone should give us some pretty good hope…that and the fact that, when this series goes back to LA for game 5, we’ll get Randy Wolf again, whom we, let’s face it, knocked around pretty well in the first game. This is reason for optimism.

1. It would be pretty bad to lose game 3 and never have used Smoltz. There were a bunch of opportunities in yesterday’s game and I don’t see him starting game 4, so I’m unsure as to what they are trying to do with him

2. Rasmus is just going to be a monster. His future looks as bright as ever

lets break up this circle of discussing our feelings.

This team = good.
Saturday = good.
Sunday = who cares until after Saturday.

Our minds are wired to drastically over estimate both the probability and impact of negative events. Still have a good offense (I don’t buy “timely hits”, I do buy loud outs and “game of inches”/babip) and pinata is on the mound with a fresh Smoltz in the pen and a good loogy combo.