Roy Oswalt          Adam Wainwright

                                               2-3, 6.00                    2-1, 2.75

Okay, everybody.  Gather round, gather round, now.  Don't be shy.

Show of hands: who didn't see that coming? 

A friend of mine scored last minute tickets to the game from his father, a season ticket holder, who didn't want to go and brave the elements.  And so I found myself at the stadium last night, as Friday turned into Saturday, watching as the Cardinals let yet another one get away.  Not a single person in that stadium, all fifty or so of us left, I think, was at all surprised by the ending.  You could feel it coming, as the Cardinals let the Astros continue to hang around, never scoring the big blow to put the game away, until the Houston bats finally found a way to break through.  Chacon threw 55 pitches, I believe, through the first two innings.  Imagine my surprise, then, when I looked up at the end of the sixth and saw him somehow, someway, still on the mound, and not yet at a hundred.

This is beginning to be one of the more confounding teams I can recall, at least in certain ways.  They continue to put absurd numbers of baserunners on; they continue to strand pretty much every one of them.  Eleven more left on base last night, with the bases left loaded twice early in the game.  I have to wonder a bit if Troy Glaus's eyes were bothering him during his at bats, or if he simply heard the smattering of boos after his second K with the sacks jammed and left the game before he broke baseball's most sacred rule, the one about no crying.  I feel bad for Glaus; he's been very good lately, yet he doesn't seem to have managed to build up any sort of good will cache.  The natives are restless, and a lot of the ire seems to be directed toward Santa.  Not saying it's right, just reporting the mood of the crowd.

Of course, with a two hour rain delay before the game, I doubt I need to tell you what we did to pass the time.  Luckily, I had brought an umbrella, so we were only cold while wandering downtown, drinking and waiting for the game to begin, rather than cold and soaked.  

Izzy is really beginning to worry me, because it doesn't look like there's anything really all that wrong with him.  He was throwing the ball hard last night, with at least one 95 on the stadium gun that I saw.  He doesn't look hobbled, like he did so often in the 2006 campaign; he just isn't getting the job done lately.  It's unfortunate, because this team doesn't have the margin for error to make up for the closer to try and work through his issues on the field. 

More than that, though, this offense needs a shot in the arm.  I have no idea where it's going to come from, unfortunately, because there aren't really any deals to be made this time of year.  I can't imagine a team really looking to move any sort of run producer this early; no one's even really close to being out of it yet.  So what's the answer?  Do we rehash the lineup discussions again?  Does the team need to start being more aggressive at the plate, rather than looking to get on base?  That doesn't seem to be a good idea to me; everything I know about the game suggests that more baserunners should equal more runs.  I wonder about it a bit, though.  Is this team too patient?  Personally, I don't think so, but I'm curious to hear what anyone else has to say on the matter. 

The offense's job doesn't get any easier today, with Roy Oswalt on the hill for Houston.  One of our longtime nemeses, I would love nothing more than to hang about six runs in three innings on Roy, but I don't see it happening.  Oswalt struggled mightily in his first three starts of the season, as his breaking ball was nowhere to be found, but he has since righted the ship, much to our collective dismay.  I'm hoping to see a little different look in the batting order today; maybe a little shakeup is just what the team needs to get it going.  Then again, maybe not.  But it certainly can't get much worse than five walks in the first two innings, against Shawn @$&!*$ Chacon, and pushing across two- count 'em- two runs.  You may want to throw a shutout today, Adam, to try and avoid another loss on your record. 

Enough spleen.  I'm going to try and find some way to get rid of this headache.  At the very least, I would like to cure the current one before incurring another.  Happy Saturday, folks.  Enjoy the game.

Lohse	Parra
2-0, 1.48	1-1, 5.40

stat of the day: albert pujols has seen more balls this year --- 166, or 54 percent --- than strikes (143, or 46 percent). from 2001-07 he saw strikes about 58 percent of the time, and never less than 56 percent strikes in any given year. for the sake of comparison, from 2001-03 barry bonds only saw strikes 46 of the time and averaged 175 walks a year (albert’s on pace for ~140 walks). in 2004, when bonds drew 232 walks, only 40 percent of the pitches thrown to him were strikes. . . . last night was albert’s second 3-walk game of the season, and we’re just 20 games in. he’s never had more than three 3-walk games in a single year. . . . .

ryan ludwick’s misadventure in the 8th inning last night got me curious about the overall play of the cards’ outfield defense. you may recall that i wrote a post last month about the sharp sag in the cardinals’ fly-catching ability in 2007. how are they faring so far in 2008? by the numbers, much better. the outfielders have chased 166 catchable flyballs so far (ie, flyballs minus home runs) and put 119 of them away, a 72 percent rate --- that’s about average. but they were well below average last year (only caught 67 percent of the catchable flyballs), so mere competency from the outfielders is a big improvement.

the infield defense, on the other hand, remains outstanding: through 20 games the cardinals are the best in the league at turning groundballs into outs. opponents are batting .177 on groundballs, vs a leaguewide average of .222. that means the cardinal infield has saved 12 base hits over an average team, or about 9 runs ---- nearly half a run a game. the cardinals are a full run a game better than average at run prevention so far (3.55 runs allowed / game, vs a league average of 4.53); if the defense accounts for about half of that savings, then the pitchers get the rest of the credit. they have walked the fewest men in the league (56) and allowed the second-fewest homers (14). avoid free passes, keep it in the park, keep it on the ground . . . . . perfectly executed pitch-to-contactism. but those of us who like strikeouts also have reason to cheer --- the cards’ strikeout total is nearly average this year. they rank 10th in the league in that category, with 6.4 k/9 --- haven’t ranked that high since 2004.

the pitchers’ strong start is probably the main reason the cards are talking such sense about mulder’s return. in 2006 and 07 they were panicky with him, rushing him back (with disastrous results) because they hated the available options (i.e. reyes). but the rhetoric from tony in today’s paper about mulder is refreshingly sensible: "He needs to come up not in a process of rehabbing" (emphasis added). amen. mulder’s rehab assignment began april 15 and can run 30 days, so the team doesn’t have to make any change at all until may 15 --- three more weeks. we’ll know a lot more about mulder by then, but more important we’ll know more about todd wellemeyer, braden looper, and joel pineiro --- as well as (vain hope) anthony reyes. . . . . .

impressions at random:

• i was extremely impressed by glaus’s at-bat in the 8th inning against guillermo mota. a quick re-set: the score was tied 2-2; ludwick was on 3d after hart’s 3-base error; pujols was on 1st (after an ibb), and there was one out (ankiel had popped out just ahead of glaus). troy looked terrible on the first pitch, swung at a changeup way out of the zone; he fell behind 0-2 and you and i and all of us were thinking he was gonna strike out and the cards were gonna fail to get that damn runner home from 3d. glaus barely stayed alive by fouling off on an 0-2 change (the 3d one he’d seen in that at-bat); mota wasted a couple of fastballs to set him up, then came back with a changeup at the knees on 2-2, hoping to get a groundball (and an inning-ending DP), but glaus recognized the pitch and laid off. mota came back with another on 3-2; glaus recognized it again and didn’t bite. it was glaus’s first at-bat against mota since 2005 --- he hasn’t seen the guy’s pitches in quite some time. so he made a hell of a quick adjustment to avoid a costly out. kennedy’s sac fly ensued, but glaus’s walk was easily the best at-bat in that inning --- the only truly good one in a "rally" that essentially consisted of two fly balls (one misplayed for an error, one caught for a sac fly).
• wainwright relied on his 3d-best pitch, the slider, to escape trouble in the 7th inning --- both kendall and hardy grounded out on it. the curveball deserted adam that inning --- he threw 6 of them, and 5 missed the strike zone. but 3 of the misses were probably quasi-intentional --- they came against rickie weeks, and adam seemed to be pitching around him to get to jj hardy, who hasn’t hit a ball out of the infield vs wainwright this year (0 hits in 7 tries --- 3 groundouts, 2 pop ups, 2 strikeouts).
• here’s one of those little splits that is not predictive --- ie, we shouldn’t count on the trend to continue --- but is mildly descriptive: the cardinal hitters in 2008 have been the most productive in the league in innings 7 through 9. that split comes courtesy of Baseball-Reference. through the first 20 games they’re hitting .302 / .392 / 493 in the final 3 innings. the cardinals have played most of their games to date against three of the league’s weakest bullpens (milwaukee san francisco and houston), which is one reason we shouldn’t expect them to keep this up.

Lincecum	Piñeiro
2-0, 2.25	0-1, 14.73

First off, I want to thank Lboros for covering for me on Wednesday.  I greatly appreciate the helping hand, Lb.  You made a very difficult time a little bit easier to bear. 

Tremendous win last night by the Cardinals.  The offense put together it's biggest inning of the year so far, the six run fourth, it's biggest run total at 11, and the largest margin of victory so far.  All of this against one of the best young pitchers in the game today. 

The real key to this game, and, in my ever so humble opinion, the key going forward, was the performance of the top of the lineup.  The top two hitters last night, Skip Schumaker and Chris Duncan, respectively, combined to go 4 for 7 with three walks.  Between the two of them, they got on base ahead of Albert and the middle of the lineup seven times.  Duncan hit a homer and a double, driving in two.  Schumaker drove in a pair as well with a two run single in the fourth that continued the inning.  Even more remarkable than the run production from those two spots was the runs scored.  The two of them combined to score six, count 'em, six times. 

There's been a ton of talk recently about trying to find some better protection for Albert in the lineup, and most of it has focused, naturally, on the cleanup position.  To me, though, the first two spots in the lineup represent the only real chance the Cardinals have to get that protection for Albert.  There is no hitter in baseball that's going to force opposing pitchers to pitch to Albert.  Runners on base ahead of him, though, will.  The top two spots in this lineup are far more important to whether or not Albert will see any pitches to hit than the hitters behind him, in my opinion.  As long as those two can continue to get on base, teams will be forced to try and get Albert out.  We saw firsthand last night what sorts of results we can expect in those cases. 

There is, however, a downside to the performance of those two outfielders last night, though, particularly Duncan.  As long as they keep producing, it makes it much harder for me to complain that Crab Man should be getting more playing time.  This puts me in a bind, as I happen to be a huge backer of Mr. Barton.  It's a very trying situation, you know, whenever reality interferes with your personal preferences.  Sigh...

As impressive as the offense was, I was personally more astounded by the performance of Wellemeyer.  I've been a very vocal critic in the past of Welley in the rotation, but I've been mostly won over.  I say mostly because I still fear he isn't able to give consistent six plus inning performances, and I worry about the burden on the pen, probably more than I really should.  Last night, though, Wellemeyer turned in probably the best start of his career, and one of the two or three best starts we've seen from a Cardinal hurler this season. 

In his seven innings of work, Wellemeyer gave only one run on four hits, (the run scoring hit, of course, being an infield single off of his- ahem- lower back type region area) with six strikeouts to two walks.  Those last numbers, to me, represent the really important statistic to look at here. 

With the addition of those numbers, Wellemeyer now has 26 strikeouts to only 9 walks, in 25 innings of work.  That's almost exactly in line with his 3:1 K/BB ratio from last night's game.  The knock on Wellemeyer, of course, has always been his elevated walk numbers and high pitch counts.  If this is a genuine improvement, (and obviously, the sample size isn't large enough to determine a whole lot, but it is getting close to being at least significant) then suddenly Wellemeyer isn't a serviceable starter, but a potential front half of the rotation starter.  I'm not sure how this has happened, and I don't know if it's sustainable, but I'm hoping. 

Last night, he was about as efficient as you can possibly imagine he ever will be.  He threw 107 pitches, 72 for strikes.  He struck out six, got seven groundball outs, eight fly outs.  Anytime you see a strike to ball ratio of better than 2:1, you have to take notice.  Wellemeyer, in addition to being efficient and aggressive, was throwing gas last night.  Going by the Pitchf/x data, (and I'm just getting used to using it, so bear with me if I'm not quite right) he was averaging 93.7 mph on his fastball, with a high of 95.5.  For a starter, that's an incredible combination of velocity and control. 

All of this, of course, really begs the question: what happens to Wellemeyer next?  When Mark Mulder comes back, which should be in about three weeks, he's expected to slide into the rotation.  Wainwright's rotation spot is secure, along with Looper.  Kyle Lohse has obviously done nothing to pitch his way out of the rotation.  Pineiro was resigned just this past offseason, to a two year deal.  He signed with the Cardinals specifically because they guaranteed him a spot starting, so I imagine they would be loathe to move him to the bullpen, even on a temporary basis.  So where exactly does the team go with Welley?  He has better raw stuff than any pitcher on the staff outside of Adam Wainwright, (and that's a close call) and, possibly Anthony Reyes, he's striking out hitters at a rate of better than one per inning, and, most importantly, he's maintaining a K/BB ratio of almost 3:1.  Yet, because of the roster numbers, he may face losing his spot in the rotation. 

I know it's still a ways off, so why don't I just table the question until it actually comes up, right?  Well, I ask because we've already seen one starter bumped for a returning pitcher in Brad Thompson, who now faces an additional crisis with the impending return of Russ Springer.  The decision on what to do with Wellemeyer and the other starters will be here much quicker than we realise, and with the way Welley has pitched so far this year, it could end up being a very significant decision. 

So, a couple of points to discuss this morning. 

One, what do you do with the looming roster crunch?  If all remains equal as it does today, (which I know will not happen, but still) who loses their spot?  Should anyone? 

Two, what have you been most surprised by this season so far?  Pleasant or unpleasant, either way.  My personal surprises have been the aforementioned Messrs. Wellemeyer and Schumaker.  Wellemeyer has improved in the one area that always kept him back, and Skippy appears, at least to my eyes, to have become a viable major league hitter.  It may still be early, but Skip has passed every test presented to him so far with flying colours, and I don't see any major weaknesses in his game to really hinder him.  I freely admit, I never saw it coming.  Reyes has been a pleasant surprise also, but I actually always believed in him.  The other two, not so much. 

Three, in last night's overflow thread, there was a bit of discussion of what theme song would best embody the glory that is the Cardinals' mulletted backup catcher, Jason LaRue.  There were many suggestions, with Def Leppard receiving some shoutouts, (or should that be shouts out?  I'm not very good with the modern vernacular...) Ratt's "Round and Round" coming up, and Styx getting some love.  I want you to give me LaRue's perfect theme song, and any song you desperately want to see used by a player, be it a batter or a reliever.  For LaRue, I nominate Foreigner's "Dirty White Boy" or, even better, pretty much anything from the Red Rocker, St. Louis favourite Sammy Hagar.  I think something from the Hagar catalogue would be particularly good; he's a beloved icon here in the Lou, especially among those who sport facial hair of a similar bent to LaRue's own, he's already associated with red, so there's a nice Cardinal tie in... I think it's a match made in heaven.  What do you guys think? 

One last thing: also from the overflow last night, Mr. Redbird referred to Troy Glaus as "Santa Glaus."  I don't know if this is the first time he's been called as such here; it's the first I've noticed.  Anyhow, I vote that we make Santa Glaus the official VEB nickname for Troy.  I think maybe a really great nickname is just what he needs to get going.  What say you, denizens of El Vivi Birders? 

That's all I got.  It was too good of a game to really complain much, so let's just bask a little bit.  Reality will kick in soon enough, right about the time Tim Lincecum goes into that ridiculous windup of his and blows the first fastball past our leadoff hitter.  Good luck, boys.  You're probably going to need it. 

Later, everybody.