heads up from will carroll: he’ll have an interview today with cards’ assistant gm john abbamondi on Baseball Prospecus radio. you can download the show here.

last night’s game . . . . . where to start? they squandered too many scoring chances; that pattern continues. for the second time this year, pujols made a fielding misplay that cost the cardinals a late lead. above all, isringhausen blew another save and took another loss. i’m not trying to downplay the concern over the bullpen, because it’s serious; they need to get that problem under control before it starts costing them bushels of games. but it hasn’t cost them bushels so far; it only seems that way. i can really only fault the pen for 2 losses: last night’s, and the april 25 loss to the astros. in both games, the cards’ win expectancy was above 90 percent until the bullpen got involved. have there been other blown saves? sure, but no bullpen is perfect; you can’t hold every lead or preserve every tie. the cards have played a lot of close games this year, and they’ve won more than their share.

we tend to lose sight of that fact when we witness maddening failure as we did last night; we tend to forget how often the bullpen has come through and sealed a win --- as it did just a couple nights previous, on monday, when four relievers pitched 6 innings of 1-run ball and enabled the cards to steal a very tenuous win. or the night before that, in the sunday night ESPN game, when the relievers held the cubs to 1 run over 4 innings and brought home a 5-3 victory. last night’s defeat left the bullpen with a net WPA of about +0.23 for the season ---- not great, but far from terrible. and Baseball Prospectus’s win-expectancy metric, WXRL, has the pen at about +1 win for the year after last night. and both metrics look prettier when you eliminate brad thompson’s stats (0-1, 7.71 era as a reliever) from the equation. does the bullpen have issues? absolutely. but let’s keep them in perspective; the pen isn’t killing the team.

yet.

i might be telling a different story in a week or two, however, if they don’t get izzy out of the closer’s role. here’s the statistic that scares me about him: only 11 percent of his strikes have been swing / misses this year. throughout his career, that figure has been at 18 or 19 percent; even in 2006, 16 percent of his strikes came on whiffs. he’s just not missing bats anymore. here’s how it breaks down on a per-pitch basis:

his offerings are running into bats nearly 50 percent more often than they did last year, and 33 percent more often than they did even during izzy’s peg-legged 2006 season. the league whiff-per-pitch average is 9.9 percent, meaning izzy is well below average this season. it's not just a case of a few off games, or a few unlucky hits that have fallen in. isringhausen isn't the same pitcher he used to be, not by a longshot --- he can’t throw it past hitters anymore. and for that reason, the cardinals can’t keep sending him out there to protect leads.

before i go on: i don’t share the impassioned and unhealthy hatred for is’hausen that is so regrettably common among cardinal fans. he’s the most dependable closer in franchise history; his failure rate has been lower than hrabosky’s, sutter’s, or worrell’s and about even with lee smith’s. he’s appeared in 19 postseason games for the cards and only cost them one --- the kent walkoff homer in game 5 of the 2004 nlcs. the guy’s a great pitcher and a class act; sure it’s frustrating to see him blow games, but he doesn’t deserve the personal abuse that gets heaped on him. spew venom if it makes you feel better; i can’t stop you. but it says more about you than it does about izzy. to me, that guy’s a winner in every respect.

unfortunately, he’s no longer getting the job done; for the team’s sake, he’s got to be replaced. it will take a while (maybe weeks, maybe months) before la russa comes around to that conclusion; when he finally does, what options will he have? a quick look:

• chris perez. after last night’s game he has a 1.72 era at memphis, with twice as many strikeouts (20) as hits allowed (10). he’s got a dominating combo of pitches (fastball-slider) and a mean streak. perez still walks too many guys, but if duncan can get todd wellemeyer to throw strikes than he ought to be able to do the same with this rookie. he’d be my first choice; get him on up here. but hey, speaking of wellemeyer . . . . .
• todd wellemeyer. think outside the box w/ me here. welley has been unhittable in the first inning of his starts in 2008 --- 26 batters faced, 2 hits, 2 walks, 9 ks, no runs allowed. in the one-inning closer’s role, he could be fearsome. there’s also the fact that, pitching out of the cardinal bullpen last year, wellemeyer posted a 1.26 era and held opposing hitters to a .174 average (albeit in a tiny sample of only 14.1 innings). if the team decides that perez still isn’t ready because of his control issues, my second choice would be wellemeyer. has he been good in the rotation? sure --- but let’s not act as if he’s irreplaceable. in 7 outings to date he has 2 quality starts; the cardinals have a pitcher at triple A (reyes) who can pitch at the back of a big-league rotation and another on the current roster (parisi) who probably can, too. this is my second choice. 
• kyle mcclellan. he didn’t exactly cover himself in glory last night; in fact, his line was nearly identical to izzy’s (one single, one triple, one out). the league is still just getting to know mcclellan, and there’s a pretty good chance he will start losing effectiveness once the hitters have a book on him. and let’s not forget, we’re talking about a guy who as of this time last year was in class A. but his k / bb data are great, he has only yielded 2 extra-base hits so far, and he’s kept 8 of 10 inherited runners from scoring. he’d be risky, but what the hell; they stuck a rookie out there (wainwright) last time izzy went down, and it worked out ok. my 3d choice.
• braden looper. he has experience in the job but was never particularly good at it; too valuable now as an innings eater in the rotation. leave him where he is.
• anthony reyes. no way. he’s not suited to it, and the manager doesn’t trust him.
• ryan franklin. if an when isringhausen gets replaced, franklin is probably going to get the first crack at the job by default. it’ll make a lot of folks foam at the mouth; i won’t like the decision either, though i’ll try to keep my outrage in check. there's a decent chance franklin can do a passable job in the short term. if dave weathers can close in the big leagues (he converted 33 of 39 opportunities last year), i reckon ryan franklin might be capable of it too. understand, i’m not endorsing this option; i think it’s a terrible idea. but i’m preparing myself to live with it.
• jason motte. like perez, he has twice as many strikeouts (24) as hits allowed (11) at triple A; he has walked just 4 men in 15 innings. but he’s got less than 2 years’ experience as a pitcher and hasn’t yet developed a quality second pitch to play off his scorching fastball. i love what i’ve seen so far, but i need to see more before i entrust him w/ a high-leverage role.
• mark worrell. only 4 saves last year at memphis, none this year. vulnerable vs left-handed hitters. not an option.
• al hrabosky. madness never dies.

so how would you handle it? vote below. i'll be at the game this afternoon, cheerfully neglecting my responsibilities; a win would give 'em three series in a row and sweep away last night's frustration. temporarily, at least. . . .

too bad they couldn’t cash in that bit of luck in the 7th inning, ie the bases-loaded single that hit the baserunner; you don’t get many gifts like that in a season. if it goes through, the reds probably go ahead by 3 or 4 and the game’s over. alas, the LOB curse that houstoncardinal wrote about sunday got in the way again --- cards left 10 men on and had their own bases-loaded misadventure, back in the 3d inning. that’s where they lost the game. although the score was 4-0 at that point, arroyo was hardly looking sharp --- 5 of the first 12 men he faced had reached base, he wasn’t keeping the ball down, wasn’t hitting corners. he was ripe. duncan hits arroyo pretty well -- .313 career average / .625 slugging coming into the game --- and he singled in his first at-bat. here’s how arroyo pitched him in the key 3d-inning at-bat:

in, in, and in. similar pattern when duncan came up in the 5th with pujols on first ---

and the last out of the game, against cordero (again with a man on), came on a fastball in on the hands. is everybody pitching duncan this way? and if they are, am i the last one to notice? [UPDATE: apparently i am the last to notice --- or at least, not the first; azruavatar posted on this very same subject (ie, duncan getting busted inside) a couple weeks ago --- gameday screen capture and everything. . . . ]

anyway, back to the 3d inning --- duncan popped out and dimmed the prospects for the rally; they scratched out a run on glaus’s walk, but that’s a weak return on a one-out, sacks-jammed opportunity with the 4/5 hitters at bat against a laboring pitcher. even a single by duncan (or glaus, for that matter) makes it a different game; an extra-base blow and the cards have a good shot to come back and win that game.

ryan ludwick batted leadoff last night, as a few people on this board have been suggesting since spring training; the one-game returns weren’t positive, which doesn't mean anything; i’ll credit la russa for thinking unconventionally and batting ludwick there instead of going with a more orthodox leadoff type like izturis or kennedy. it's an interesting experiment, and on a team such as this i'm in favor of experimentation. but in my opinion they've got another leadoff-man experiment that's working out so far --- schumaker and barton. those two have occupied the leadoff slot in 25 of the 27 games to date, and cardinal leadoff men rank first in the league in runs and walks and 3d in obp.

wellemeyer kept the ball in the park for only the second time all year. interesting split --- in his three starts at home this year, he has yielded 22 fly balls and only 1 homer; on the road, 21 fly balls and 5 homers. not drawing any conclusions from that, but keeping my eye on it. as long as wellemeyer keeps throwing strikes, i’m fine with him staying in the rotation. last night he only walked 2 men last night and threw nearly 70 percent of his pitches for strikes, and he continues to miss bats (11 swinging strikes last night). what the hell; leave him out there and see if he can keep it up. but now here’s the irony: the stated rationale for using wellemeyer in the rotation was that the cardinals won all but one of his starts last year. i thought that was a dumb reason, as the w-l had less to do with wellemeyer than with his teammates. but now wellemeyer’s actually showing signs of being a decent power pitcher ---- striking a lot of guys out (he ranks 3d in the nl in strikeouts as of this morning, and 5th in k/9) and keeping them off the basepaths --- but the team’s only 3-3 in his starts. with mulder’s return looming, the colonel’s hold on a rotation slot remains pretty dicey.

gotta keep it short today. it’s a year since josh hancock’s fatal accident, a fitting time to remember him and think about the circumstances of his death.

the entire SB Nation network was down for 7 hours yesterday; i picture cables unraveling, servers liquifying, IT dudes fanning the smoke and flame away as they peer into their flat screens. the source of the problem, we are told, was "bad RAM" ---- just installed a few days ago. this is extremely rare and therefore was only discovered via a painstaking process of elimination --- ie, after nearly every other possible cause for the outage was investigated. that’s why the system was down for so long.

we’re cautioned that the server might still get balky today when normal network traffic ramps up. so if the site goes down again today --- or if it should ever go down for any length of time at any point in the future --- i’ll use the VEB page on facebook as a channel to keep everyone updated re the tech situation. the page is easy to find --- just type "Viva El Birdos" into the facebook search bar. i’ll write on the wall there and share whatever information i have.

my apologies to everybody for the long outage.

although we didn’t have a game thread last night, i kept picking up telepathic signals throughout the evening and jotting them down. so here they are --- an abbreviated game thread for last night’s 7-4 loss:

GAME 22 OPEN THREAD: APRIL 23, 2008

ryan’s not starting tonight? TONY!
way to get us started schu.
troy!
kennedy got another hit? mercy.
and miles kills the rally.
     ryan drives in the runs there. no question about it.
attaboy, welley!
9 up, 9 down.
     don’t jinx it.
           too late --- there’s the basehit.
                 nice going, loudmouth.
there goes the shutout.
c’mon welley, bear down.
we need some more runs.
crap --- tie game.
c’mon albert!
crap.
when was our last base hit anyway?
fourth inning.
another hit for kennedy? i can’t believe it.
     . . . . . and he’s caught stealing. never mind.
here comes reyes.
come on anthony!
what the hell was THAT??
     second baseman’s supposed to be covering.
           yeah, but where was he throwing it?
                 ryan would have caught it.
come on anthony, shake it off.
uh oh. there goes his trade value.
time to bring up mark worrell.
that was depressing.
we suck.
it was la russa’s fault.
late, everybody.

regarding reyes’ errant throw in the 8th, it sounds like he was a tad jumpy. he told the p-d: "I turned around a little too quick and thought somebody would be there. I was just hoping that it would get to him." very costly mistake, and the string of two-out hits that ensued was all too reminiscent of reyes v2007. but i can’t pin the loss entirely on him. the cardinal bats fell asleep after the first inning, putting just 7 men on base after the 4-inning rally. the at-bat that really hurt, imho, was duncan’s in the second inning. the cards had 2 on and 1 out; they’d put 8 of their first 12 men on base against snell and were poised to drive him out of the game. snell threw him a slider at the ankles on the first pitch, and duncan chased it ---- i often defend first-pitch swinging on this board, but that was the type of hack that gives first-pitch swinging a bad name; if it’s not a pitch you can drive, let it go. i suppose duncan might have been looking for a fastball in and got fooled; snell had thrown him 4 fastballs in his previous at-bat. then again, maybe chris was just overeager and took a bad swing. in any case, he swung and missed at a pitch that should have been ball 1; then he chased a borderline fastball on the second pitch and grounded into a double play, getting snell out of trouble. what might have been a fatal inning for snell ended up being a 7-pitch picnic; he cruised thereafter.

i thought the sb attempt by kennedy in the 8th inning was a good call --- sensible time to try a one-run strategy. it was late in a tie game, so they didn’t really need to play for the big inning --- one run probably wins it. and the hitters due up (pitcher, then miles, then schu, then ankiel) weren’t likely to put together a big inning anyway. so the cost of a CS was lower than usual, whereas the reward of a successful steal was higher than usual --- it’d get the go-ahead run to 2d with nobody out, and he probably would’ve scored. the pittsburgh infielders were all in motion, playing for the bunt, and the catcher (doumit) is really an outfielder; he’d only thrown out 1 of 8 basestealers in 2008 prior to kennedy’s attempt and nailed just 22 percent of baserunners in limited duty behind the plate last year . . . . all around, the attempted sb was a good percentage play. it took a very good throw, which doumit made, and the play was very close (i couldn’t say for sure he was really out).

before i sign off, i have to call everyone’s attention to the 1986 replay over at the sporting news. they’ve been dutifully simming over there for almost 6 months; the season is almost complete, and deadspin’s will leitch has miraculously skippered the cardinals to the brink of a division title: they lead the mets by a game with 10 left to play. in real life, you may recall, the 1986 cards finished 28.5 games behind new york; in the fantasy world, the cards went into shea a few days ago and swept a two-game series (winning both by 1 run) to open up a 2-game lead. last night they took a 3-2 lead into the 9th against the phillies, but ray soff (???) blew the save.

remember, everyone ---- head to facebook if the server ever bombs again.

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.

good discussion going over in Hardcore Legend’s FanPost about the cards’ search for a cleanup hitter --- ~50 comments and counting. a number of the commenters commended HL for the depth of the analysis, and i’d like to reinforce that. this is an example of what the FanPost section is meant for --- something that’s well thought-out and researched, and that offers a ton of meat for discussion. far too many of our FanPosts are shallow toss-offs without anything behind them --- "hey guys, what do you think of player X?" half the FanPosts currently running on the front page drew fewer than 10 comments --- ie, they didn’t generate any discussion. what’s the harm in that, you ask? dud FanPosts push other, better FanPosts --- ones that are generating discussion --- off the front page.

i’m not suggesting that every FanPost has to be as heavy-duty as HL’s --- that’s a high standard to meet. but i’d like to have more of them where the author thought his/her subject over and maybe did a little research before posting --- as opposed to just tossing something out there on a whim. FanPosts of the former type add a lot to the site; the latter just clutter it up.

bernie miklasz points out in his column this morning that the cardinal rotation started off just as hot in 2007 as it has in 2008. somebody made a similar point in one of the game threads over the weekend. i did a little addin’ up to flesh out the comparison. through 13 games:

again, we’re looking at starting pitchers only. this year’s rotation has a much better k/bb ratio (nearly 3 to 1, truly outstanding), but last year’s came out of the gate throwing more innings, allowing fewer hits and fewer homers, and --- most telling --- delivering quality starts ("QS" in the table) more reliably. (even randy keisler threw a quality start in the first 13 games of 2007.) the rotation had a much worse won-loss last year for a simple reason: the offense totaled only 42 runs in the first 13 games, vs the 60 runs the 2008 offense has backed the staff with. last year’s hitters only scored 4 or more runs in 3 of the first 13 games; this year’s team has scored 4 or more 8 times. a few more numbers, for the sabermetrically inclined:

"SC" stands for "game score"; the starters avg game score was slightly higher last year, and their slash lines were much, much better; FIP tilts slightly to the 2008 rotation, a reflection of its stellar k/bb ratio so far.

but that leads me to a final comparison --- a hopeful one --- and then i promise i’ll leave last year behind. the 2007 rotation had allowed a BABIP of just .276 through 13 games --- an unsustainably low figure, one that would have told us (had we checked) that the starters couldn’t go on pitching at that level; more hits were bound to start falling. (for those unfamiliar with the concept of BABIP, there are explanations here and here.) this year’s rotation has a BABIP of .303 so far, which is about an average figure. so this year’s good start rests on a firmer foundation than last year’s; it’s more squarely centered on ability than on random chance. of course, we’ve now got the lame-winged pineiro and mulder returning to duty, rendering these figures somewhat meaningless; the next 13 games will probably be more predictive of the staff’s future performance than the 13 just completed.

some thoughts about pineiro and wellemeyer after the jump.

Continue reading this post »

Q: what’s the downside of the 5-1 start? A: last night’s game thread.

the cards’ unexpectedly good start has raised everybody’s expectations, which in turn raises the piss-n-moan factor when the team turns out to be (gasp) fallible. one loss, and here come 800 comments’ worth of knee-jerk carping about how la russa and duncan are complete idiots --- as if they had nothing at all to do with the 5-1 start. or nothing to do with putting todd wellemeyer out there. he shouldn’t even be in the rotation according to a majority of this community (myself included), but i didn’t read a single comment on last night’s thread which said "maybe tony n dave made the right call on wellemeyer." i only read how those two morons were costing the team games.

but that’s the beauty of knee-jerk carping --- you’re not obliged to use fairness or logic. or maybe i should say you get to use some bizarro alternative form of fairness / logic --- the same kind my 4- and 6-year-olds invoke when they don’t get their way. here’s a textbook example of "alternative logic": for 2 solid years, whenever la russa benched duncan against a left-handed pitcher the VEB community bellowed "la russa’s an idiot! duncan’s our second-best hitter!!" last night tony had duncan in the lineup vs a left-hander . . . . . and the community bellowed "la russa’s an idiot! duncan can’t hit lefties!!"

here’s another example: tony always gets ragged on for his blind loyalty to veteran pitchers and his distrust of youngsters; i rag on him for that all the time. well, last night tony passed over his veteran setup man (franklin) and entrusted a 9th-inning tie to a rookie; when the kid lost the game, the board started piling on la russa again. one person even wrote "f**k larussa and duncan," for which he earned some polite encouragement to familiarize himself w/ the Community Guidelines.

one passage in the Community Guidelines goes like this: "there’s a difference between making a critical point and pounding your fists on the floor. if all you have to offer is the latter, do not post." there was some worthwhile, intelligent criticism on the thread last night --- the kind of discussion that makes the community strong. it’s fair to argue that brian barton had earned a 4th consecutive start, and that his absence exacerbated the cards’ vulnerability vs left-handed pitching. i agree with that argument --- last night’s lineup did not give the cards their best chance to win. but if the argument is that the lineup caused the loss, i disagree strongly; brian barton, who has 11 big-league at-bats, ain’t the sole difference between losses and wins. not yet; not singlehandedly. if you repeat that argument a couple hundred times with ever-mounting frustration and snark, it’s not an argument at all; that’s just infantile pounding of fists on the floor. the floor sustained an awful beating last night --- on april 7th. in the cards’ second loss of the season. there are probably 75 to 85 more losses left on the schedule. if last night’s thread is the standard, there’s no way the floor can survive all year. it’s gonna cave.

i’m rarely on the game threads as they unfold; i’m usually playing with my kids, brushing their teeth, and tucking ’em in bed. i come along later and read the commentary, and i am often entertained by the sharp wit and the keen observations, but some passages make me cringe. when things don't go well for the team, the herd starts looking for a scapegoat and then mercilessly pounds away. a large chunk of the community, including many of VEB's most knowledgeable and long-standing members, avoids the game threads like the plague, and i can understand why. but i think it’s a shame.

* * * * * * * *

a few notes about the ballgame itself:

• wellemeyer’s start was easily the best of his big-league career. he completed 7 innings for the first time ever, and he induced 16 swing / misses last night while walking just one man --- dominance. i haven’t looked carefully at the pitch FX data yet, but at a glance it looks like he was getting everything over --- fastball, slider, change. both the homers came on off-speed pitches --- a changeup to berkman, a hanging slider to lee.
• troy glaus made his bones last night, eh? i wouldn’t exactly say he plowed over towles on the play at the plate, but he didn’t shy away from contact either. just as impressive, imho, was his disciplined at-bat moments earlier --- he laid off a verrrry tempting 2-strike splitter, waited out valverde for a fastball and put a decent swing on it.
• one possible reason ryan franklin didn’t pitch the bottom of the 9th: the two hitters due up, lee and tejada, both have good career numbers against him --- .280 / .333 / .520 for lee (2 hr in 25 ab), and .321 / .406 / .429 for tejada.
• and a minor-league note: mitchell boggs made an impressive debut at triple A --- 6 innings, 3 hits, 1 run (unearned). jason motte pitched 1.1 innings of relief and struck out 3 guys; so far he’s struck out half the men he has faced at the triple A level, while allowing just 2 baserunners. might not be too long before we see him in st louis . . . . .

Morning, everybody.

Here's Anthony Reyes' line from yest, erday.

6IP,0R,0ER,3H,1BB,2K

Here are a couple of comments following that performance. Per Matthew Leach:

"For me, it was a real difficult game to evaluate the performances of the pitchers," Duncan said. "Odalis Perez was doing pretty good for five innings, if I remember right, and he's not exactly a top of the rotation guy. I actually thought Anthony threw better in the last game he pitched, in comparison to this one."

And this, from Joe Strauss

"I'm still looking for Anthony to do certain things that when you face first division teams you can compete against them and have a legitimate chance to be successful," Duncan said.

Earlier in the same article, however;

"I always say the bottome line is what you look at," Duncan said. "It's not how you get it but if you get it. In Anthony's case, the line is there today."

All right. Am I the only one who sees a bit of a disconnect here? In fairness to Duncan, he did say that only results matter. However, he also basically wrote off yesterday, mostly due to the wind. (BTW, game time the wind was listed at 12mph, blowing in. The average wind speed this spring has been around 11mph. I have a hard time believing the wind was a bigger factor yesterday than the rest of the time.)

Look, I will not claim that Anthony Reyes is a great pitcher. I won't even go out on a limb and say he's a particularly good pitcher at the moment. I like the kid; I think he still has a lot of potential. However, he was very bad last year. He was fairly bad, with a couple of notable exceptions, in 2006. I could go into all kinds of reason why I think he's had so many problems, but I won't. I'll just let the record stand.

When I see these sorts of comments made about a pitcher who just threw the game that Anthony did yesterday, though, I can't just let it go. After the gushing, the praise, the heaping of laurels, on the shoulders of Brad Thompson, for lesser performances, I just cannot let it go. After Todd Wellemeyer, with his >6BB/9IP, his inability to controlhis pitch counts, and, thus, his inability to go later in a ballgame than the fifth inning, is guaranteed a spot and commended for his efficiency, I just cannot let it go. And most of all, after a talented, struggling young man has worked his tail off, dedicated himself to coming into camp in the best shape possible, and conducted himself in as professional a manner as you could ever hope for, I just cannot let those comments go.

Anthony Reyes has pitched as well as any other pitcher in competition for a starting spot this spring. He has the second most strikeouts of any pitcher, the second best ERA, (despite throwing one game while still recuperating from the flu) and has walked almost no one. However, there is some mystical thing, some magical thing, some fantastic, bamstaferous, flamtabulous thing that Anthony Reyes simply does not do. Unfortunately, whatever that single thing is, it's the only thing that can possibly make him into a major league pitcher.

I cant' tell you he's a great pitcher. I can't even tell you he's all that good of a pitcher. I can, however, tell you that he's been a better pitcher this spring than the pitchers who have beaten him out for his spot in the rotation. And it flat out drives me nuts. Brad Thompson, Braden Looper, and Todd Wellemeyer will all be in the rotation come opening day. However, Anthony Reyes, despite having pitched better, will not be. Hopefully, though, he'll have the encouraging words offered up by his pitching coach as a source of comfort as he whiles away the hours in Mem-

Oh yeah, that's right. Never mind.

On a positive note, (and I do apologise for the negativity; I try to control it, but this just really rubs me the wrong way) I am enjoying watching a baseball game at five o' clock in the morning. A lot. I don't know if I can somehow get Japanese baseball games here in the states on television, but if I can, my joy will flow like roaring river from mountain tops, bringing gentle cherry blossom breeze to the valley.

On a related note, I know that Rich Harden can't stay healthy. But good god, is he ever nasty. (Jon Lester ain't too bad either, but Harden is just wicked.)

There's another thing that's upsetting me this morning. ESPN is currently running a series of interstitials, entitled, "Remembering the House that Ruth Built". It is, obviously, a retrospective on Yankee Stadium.

Currently, there is on running about Max Schmeling and Joe Louis. It talks about Schmeling defeating the heavily favoured Louis, etc., and then talks about the rematch in Yankee Stadium. The tagling, that Louis defeated Schmeling on the 22nd of June, 1938, in front of a raucous, celebratory crowd, contains a serious problem.

It refers to Schmeling as "Hitler's Champ."

You got that?

"Hitler's Champ".

Here, read this.

Max Schmeling is one of the most decent human beings you will ever read about. The man is a literal hero. It was a crime the way he was demonized in the 30s in America. The times being what they were, though, our perspective now has to be taken with a grain of salt. Was it right? No. Was it understandable? A little, yes. Schmeling was a German, fighting a black man in a time when Adolph Hitler was spouting propaganda about the superiority of his Aryan Master Race. You can understand a bit how the boxer could have been made a scapegoat. Again, it wasn't fair, but we can forgive. There was a tremendous amount of fear and anger. Rational minds struggles against the tide when the times are dark.

This is not the 1930s. This is 2008. We know the full story of the man. We know that he refused to join the Nazi Party and was punished for it. We know that he hid a pair of Jewish children, sparing their lives from the scythes of the German genocide. And yet, somehow, in this supposedly enlightened age, ESPN calls Max Schmeling, a man too principled and courageous to give in to the overwhelming press of evil, "Hitler's Champ". I don't care how much you want to elevate Joe Louis. Joe Louis needs no elevation. He was one of the greatest fighters who ever lived. He maintained tremendous dignity in an era when the black man was not supposed to have any. He is a beautiful, tragic figure, to be always remembered as the dark side of our own American Dream. Joe Louis needs no elevation. To demonize his opponent, even in a quick, thrown off television spot, seventy years after the fact, when we should all know better, when we do all know better, is the lowest, most despicable form of pandering. I am sickened. To hell with you, ESPN. And I have nothing else to say about it.

Manny just hit a solo home run. Rich Harden is still ridiculous.

Again, sorry for all the negativity this morning, everybody. Hey, there's a baseball game on today! The Wagonmaker will take the mound today, facing off against Jeremy Guthrie, Baltimore's own Opening Day starter. It should be a good one, and wonder of wonders, it's on television! Fox Sports Midwest, to be more specific. I can't express how exciting it is to have real baseball on TV again.

By the way, after watching Kyle McClellan pitch in Sunday's game, I'm softening my stance on Chris Perez making the major league team. Don't get me wrong; I still think Perez is ready to work at the big league level, but if it's between Wild Thing and K-Mac, (that's right, I'm coining my own nicknames for everyone and everything this morning) I don't think we can lose. Unless Cliff Politte somehow beats out both of them for a spot, I'll be happy. Both are very exciting, very promising young players, just the sort of player I'm looking forward to watching this year. Please, somebody, tell Cliff Politte can't beat them both out. For the love of god, tell me!!!

One last note, and it's a nice one. My Spring Surprise Position Player, Travis Mitchell, has been coming on strong the last few days. I believe he's slated to start the year out at Quad Cities; I'm planning to try and make at least one trip up there this year to get a look at a couple of the players on that squad, Mitchell high among them. Mitchell's a local kid, from Chesterfield, and I'm really excited to follow him this year.

HOORAY BASEBALL!!!

Alright. I don't feel like quite such a downer now.