This Week Around SB Nation

I realize I was originally planning to do this on Sundays, but—and this shouldn't have come as a shock to me—lately I find myself very busy with blogging about a certain other sport on Sundays. Did you hear Sam Bradford made his first start yesterday afternoon? Because I heard that.

SB Nation St. Louis

Today's Top 5 is about things to watch if the standings are no longer interesting, which we've covered here in less list-centric form. Kyle Lohse is on it, and even as frequently as he was saved by Colby Rasmus and Brendan Ryan I think yesterday's performance was good enough to keep him on the roster. That's how fifth starters are—Lohse is at least passing the Jeff Suppan test. (And if he were anybody less frustrating we'd be talking about how he'll eventually allow fewer hits than innings pitched at least once—he's getting pasted, but I can't imagine his true-talent BAbip is now .398.)

Over the weekend The Sports of St. Louis, which is normally just me, had the distinct pleasure of running a series of narratives involving Colby Rasmus and father figures by none other than Alex Fritz. It's best to just click that first link and scroll through all three of them at once, but if you're looking for added control I offer: Narratives involving Colby Rasmus and Father Figures: The Drug Dad; Biblical Dad; and Star Wars Dad. Some dangole Oedipal problems, I reckon. 

Fanposts

[This just in: I have just received word that minor league coverage continues apace—like the fanposts, you can (and should) follow fanshots at this blog-like link, at least until Yadi2Second gets everyone else to tag things half as comprehensively as he does.]

Fanpost activity has fallen off as the Cardinals become less fan-friendly and more fan-frustrating, but if you scroll down the list there's still a lot of high quality work being done. I'd like to start with kindred's Mistakes I Made, which ran two weeks ago, when I didn't run this recap. It is, quite simply, mistakes kindred has made, and the first one on his list reminds me that I felt the same way, and also that Brian Daubach existed:

1. Chris Duncan's call-up. When Pujols strained his oblique in 2006, I advocated for calling up Brian Daubach instead of Duncan. Daubach was a better stop-gap in a pennant race, I thought. His minor league numbers were better than Duncan's, he had a reasonable MLB pedigree, and I thought he'd be a better bet to hold down the fort for a few weeks until Pujols returned. LB argued that Duncan might have some upside that was worth exploring. He was right in this case.

Later on, in the worst moments of the Colby Rasmus/Tony La Russa staring contest, IL and StL Fan had the guts to run through Colby Rasmus Trade Options—which is good, because I don't have the stomach to think about that. d-dee went to photo day last weekend, which is why Skip Schumaker is giving you the old all-clear sign from the top of this post. I would suggest taking a look at all of them—it's weird to see baseball players posing for pictures, and it's clear that not all of them are quite sure how to do it. 

Most recently we have a swing analysis from thepainguy, this time on HPGF favorite Matt Carpenter, who has a non-zero chance of being David Freese next year. I'm really excited about Matt Carpenter, and that he really does look eerily like Ryan Howard in that swing does nothing to dissuade me—of course, when Ryan Howard was 24 and a little old for AA he hit 37 home runs in 102 games there.