A look at the Cardinals regulars pre- and post-All Star Break.

It seems pretty clear that this team, since the All-Star Break, has simply been a different team than before.  The pitching's seemingly been good the entire time, but the offense actually seems to be producing, mostly because the "black holes" in the lineup seem to be performing a little better.  I'm not the sabermetric expert that many of you are, but I figured I could at least look at the main traditional stats to look at who has been performing better and who hasn't to try to figure out what has changed.

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Looking at BA/OBP/Slug/OPS, of the 7 regulars that have been the main starters with the Cardinals all year long, four of them are performing at a higher level going by OPS as the main stat I'm looking at.  All numbers are before the day game on August 11 (in which Rasmus just hit a grand slam!  Woohoo!  Eat that Arroyo!).  Now, these are small sample sizes, and I'm fully aware of that, so I'm not necessarily making the case these players are going to continue hitting like they have in the second half.

The improved players are Yadier Molina, MIFs Brendan Ryan and Skip Schumaker and Matt Holliday, who actually had a pretty good first half anyway.

As is pretty evident, we basically had 3 black holes in this lineup.  It did seem like Molina would occasionally get a big hit, but he'd just as often ground into a double play (which he's done 87 times thus far this year.  EDIT:  espn.com tells me he's done this 15 times this year-not the 87 that I recall).  In addition, our middle infield, as has been noted ad nauseum here, has really been just terrible all season.

However, this has changed, as we see the post All-Star break numbers for these same players now.

As can be seen here, our three very underachieving players have all magically stopped doing so since the break, with Molina playing like the All-Star he is finally and with our middle infield going from completely pathetic to at least decent, and I'd argue a .779 OPS for a 2nd baseman is actually quite good.

Holliday has been even studlier than he was in the first half, putting up a near-Pujolsian .962 OPS in the 2nd half.  Once again though, this is a small sample size, where the most at bats any of these four batters has had so far is 91 (Holliday) and the least is 52 (Skip).

Meanwhile, three players have performed worse in the 2nd half so far in Colby Rasmus, Felipe Lopez and Albert Pujols.   Here are their first half numbers:

And there's that Pujolsian OPS!  As we can see, in the first half, Pujols, despite not seeming like himself at times (as is demonstrated by the batting average as well), still had a monster first half, showing just how spoiled we've become by his once-in-a-generation talent.  Rasmus, meanwhile, pretty much started off the season as the best center fielder in baseball, a very welcome sight for all of us that were hoping for a breakout season.  Meanwhile, Felipe Lopez has been about the guy I would guess we were all expecting, putting up an OPS that is actually one measly point better than his career average (.736).

Now for their second half numbers-again, the at bats are small sample size, with Rasmus being up there 74 times and Lopez and Pujols 91 and 98 times respectively, but here's how they've fared thusfar:

First off, let's dismiss the Pujols numbers.  He's hitting better and slugging better, but simply hasn't been taking the walks that he took in the first half.  His numbers are only  30 points worse overall, but he actually seems more like the Albert Pujols of the rest of his career, so there's certainly no reason to worry there (in fact, I was surprised to see his OPS was down, I was expecting him to be in the first group).  Lopez has struggled more, most notably in his batting and slugging, as his OBP is still just as mediocre as it ever was.  Eighty points isn't insignificant, but it's also easily overcome by the steps forward taken by Ryan and Schumaker in the middle infield.

The bat to be concerned with is Colby Rasmus.  His transformation this year into the best center fielder in the NL (and maybe MLB) then into a center-field version of Joe Thurston (with the bat anyway, I certainly don't mean Colby's defense or base-running skills have deteriorated) is quite concerning.  Of course, Rasmus's home run today, seeing as it's such as small sample, might actually cut a pretty big chunk out of that -.277 difference in OPS.

So questions moving forward:

1)   Are the signs of life from our middle infield reason to be encouraged, or is this most likely just a little blip in the radar that isn't really worth mentioning?  Are you still concerned or does this seem like a middle infield that we can go into the playoffs with and expect a reasonable chance of success?

2)  What can we expect from Yadier Molina the rest of the year?   Much has been said about his workload, but he's also been playing better recently.  Will it catch up to him?  Will TLR finally start to rest him? 

3)  What can we expect from Colby Rasmus?   I'd be surprised if he could turn back into the .900+ OPS guy the rest of the year, but if the home run today is an indication he's seeing the ball better again, would .850 be too much to ask?  Will the departure of Ludwick and the fact that TLR has no other real options to take Rasmus out of the lineup 2-3 times a week give him the peace of mind to be that first-half guy again?