PJ Walters goes for the Redbirds.

The game starts at 6pm EDT on ESPN2.

The Bulls are the AAA team for the Rays and feature a ton of talent.  Should be a good matchup.

I raised this issue several weeks ago, and things have gradually become more interesting.  Can Albert somehow find a way to grind out enough RBIs, HRs, and a high enough BA to win the ever-elusive triple crown?  We are definitely in the home stretch of the season, and I'm come to the conclusion it remains difficult but possible.  Consider Albert vs. the closest competition (as of 22 September):

RBI:
Pujols - 128
Fielder - 128
Howard - 123

A dead heat at the moment.  Albert has 11 games left, Prince 12.  Their competition strength is about equal too (though the Brewers do have to play the Phillies, and the Cardinals get the Reds).  And they do get to play each other.  I've got to think that the pitching staff and TLR would try to lock Fielder down if Albert is within sniffing distance of the Triple Crown.  SMALL EDGE TO PUJOLS.

HR:
Pujols - 47
Reynolds - 43
Howard - 41

Albert has the biggest edge here.  Reynolds could put on a surge, but I think with the number of games left, four home runs is a big gap to overcome.  Howard has the ability to stack home runs too (that's pretty much all he hits) but again, time is too short.  LARGE EDGE TO PUJOLS.

BA:
Ramirez - .352
Pujols - .329
Sandoval - .323

Ah yes, easily the hardest of the three categories for Albert to beat.  Ramirez has been incredibly dominant all season, and that .352 average looks mighty shiny.  BUT, I am highly encouraged by developments in the past ten days.  If you look at Ramirez's stats, he has slid eight percentage points in that period, with only one multi-hit game to speak of.  Florida has 12 games left.  If he maintains that rate of slide, he could finish in the neighborhood of .344.  The question is, can Albert surge his way to that mark?  He has finished with seasonal averages above this mark twice already (.357 in 2008, .359 in 2003).  The trick is, it would take a pretty good clip to get there, my junior high math suggests that if he averages 4 plate appearances the rest of the way, then he needs 24 hits or a .545 average to overcome the deficit.  SMALL EDGE TO RAMIREZ

Bottom Line - can he do it?  My heart says yes, my head says no.  It would be outstanding to see a triple-crown winner, and Albert may someday still do it (I think his window could close though, within the next 3-5 years).  But it just won't be this year.  Nuts. 

Note: I had these up on Saturday on Athletics Nation and Minor League Ball but I had to wait the two days to post them here.  I figured Cardinals fans would enjoy them.  There are more celebration pics within the gallery, linked below.  Take care.

From Raley Field in Sacramento. The Redbirds won, 6-0. In Game 3 of their Pacific Coast League championship series Memphis cruised to a sweep behind a strong outing by Evan MacLane (8 1/3 IP, 9 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 8 K), who didn't allow a run in starts against Albuquerque and Sacramento. The Redbirds scored single runs in the 1st and 2nd before adding a pair in the 5th and 7th. Brian Barden drove in two runs while Allen Craig, David Freese and Shane Robinson each had one. Jon Jay and Jarrett Hoffpauir set the table at the top of the order, both going 3-for-5 while scoring twice. Mark Shorey also chipped in with a pair of hits. Sacramento, denied in their attempt for a third straight PCL title, was led by Brett Wallace, Chris Carter and Adrian Cardenas who all had two hits each but Jerome Williams allowed 4 runs in 5 innings.

There isn't much else to say but "Congratulations, Memphis." With a 77-67 regular season record they didn't seem like too much of a threat to beat Albuquerque in the first round but they won all three games. It earned them a matchup against Sacramento, coming off of scoring 36 runs in four games against Tacoma. That would turn around quickly with just two in three games as Memphis breezed through the PCL playoffs with a 6-0 record, once more proving that the games aren't won or lost on paper. So much of it has to do with getting hot at the right time and in their six games Memphis allowed just ten runs, six of them coming in Game 2 in Albuquerque. No doubt, they earned their title.

For me, there is a certain excitement to covering a clinching game because of the emotion involved on both the winning and losing sides.  It's not a World Series victory but it's still a championship for the players, teams and fans no matter what the competition is, from Little League through high school, college and all levels of the Minors.

Unless I work any Arizona Fall League games, this also wraps up my "season." It began in March as a fan with the final rounds of the World Baseball Classic at Dodger Stadium, included three Minor League All-Star Games, and was capped off with shooting a league title game.  All told, I did 20 games this year and that's not too bad considering much of my time from April to June was taken up with buying, moving and settling into my first house.  Each game I cover, I like to try to capture something I haven't before whether it's a certain play or something from a specific angle, because that helps keep things fresh.  I've got 80 from the game here with some to follow below as usual.  Already looking forward to the next game, whenever and wherever it is! Thanks for looking.

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In yesterday's main post, chuck showed us a rather frightening table which outlined Lohse's numbers in each season in his career.  Looking at that just that alone would lead you to believe that Lohse's season in 2008 was an outlier, and he should be expected to pitch like his career numbers for the rest of the season and his tenure with the Cardinals.  

However, I think that table, and the subsequent conclusions that it invoked, are misleading a couple of ways:

1) You can't just discount Lohse's 2008 season.  Yes, it was probably a fluke, but it also represents a significant sample of his recent pitching history, and one that we should definitely consider towards projecting future performance.  Before the year, the 4 major projection systems featured on FanGraphs projected him to have an FIP ranging from 3.99 to 4.39, with a mean of 4.17.  That is not as good as his 2008 season, but it is also better than his previous career numbers. 

2) Lohse has clearly been affected by his injury this year.  Here is an informative table:

*The FIP's are all normalized to a league specific factor of 3.2.  On FanGraphs, they are reported based on the actual league factor, which can vary from year to year. 

You can call this table cherry picking, but the trend seems pretty obvious to me.  He's pitched poorly in his career, then pitched very well in 2008.  Before the injury this year, he pitched basically in between his 2008 and career numbers which was what he was statistically projected to do.  However, since the injury, he has pitched far worse than ever before, with all of his numbers worse than his career averages.  

Of course, we all know that correlation does not equal causation, so let's take a look at his Pitch f/x data before and after the injury to see if there are any obvious signs that something is wrong.  First, his stuff:

via www.hardballtimes.com

You can click on the link for a larger image.

It's clear that his stuff has gotten worse after his injury.  His fastball velocity has declined by over 1 MPH, and all of his pitches are blending more.

Here is what I think this storyline shows us: Lohse had legitimately improved before or during the 08 season.  His projections before the year expected him to be about halfway between his 08 season and his career numbers.  During the first couple of months of the season, before his injury, he pitched almost exactly to his projections.  After the injury, he lost velocity and separation on his pitches, and his performance was a lot worse than his career numbers likely due to that fact. 

The question is whether or not we can expect him to regain his stuff next year.  Truthfully, I have no idea; however, I believe that if he does, he can be an above average starter and may provide enough value not to make his contract an albatross.

Operating under the assumption that the Cardinals make the playoffs, I was considering making the flight to St. Louis to see a playoff game and see my family. Being a student, my only choice is to come on the weekend. Also considering that I'd like to see some important baseball, I was going to leave out the NLDS. This leaves me with 3 possible games to see. The advantages and disadvantages are listed.

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Apologies, yet again, for causing the walkoff. I was watching multiple games and had a brief brain freeze that cost Carp the win. But, hey, I was right on the walkoff part - and for that, I thank Brendan Ryan. He saved me not only from wanting to beat the crap out of myself but also from getting the crap beat out of me by you VEB faithful (and maybe even the GOB).

Anyway, let's celebrate! Viva el Birdos!

It was a fine night for a ball game.

With the tying run on 3rd with 1 out in the 5th, Brendan Ryan hits a fly to left.

Bobby Scales catches the ball.

Mark DeRosa is safe at home. Score tied 2-2 after 5.

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well it turns out the cubs called up So taguchi, so we may see him in cubbie blue sometime over teh weekend series.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/stories.nsf/cardinals/story/7764B6D5CBCDC41786257634005AAFEF?OpenDocument

i feel bad for so, granted he's a 5th OF at best and with september call ups he's more like a 6th since he's past 40.  But he had a great few years here as a 4th/5th OF with enough fans liking him to get a cards shirt with his name and number on 'em (i don't really recall any other 4th OF on any team that has a t-shirt jersey of the player you could buy at stores)

Love him or hate him, he was a great part of the '06 run, especially the NLCS.  (i still think yadi should of got series mvp over suppan but oh well)

you gotta love his quotes too "I don't have any friends in Chicago, so I thought it was a wrong number."  He's a true cardinals player.

pushing 1000 in the main thread, so why don't you follow me over here? I have cupcakes

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You know when you're looking for something on Google and you end up with so many links on a subject that you start to feel like a stalker? Yeah. Me too.

So here's a sampler of our favorite shoulder-licker, Brendan Ryan. You too can stalk the Booooooooooog.

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