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6-4, 5.06 |
0-1, 8.68 |
GAME TIME 7:05 CDT
Why yes, the game thread is up early. Very early. I have some things going on tomorrow, so this may have been my only chance.
Again with the blowouts....C'mon! Not only is the season bad, it is a times just plain unwatchable, with games essentially ending in the early innings. Baseball Investor is a neat new site that has graphs of teams Pythagorean records and Paul, the guy who runs the site, was kind enough to share with me some of the charts.
What sticks out to me like a sore thumb is that the Cardinals win by an average of 3.63 and lose by an average of 4.70. And this was from 7/15/07, we've now seen the Braves outscore the Cardinals 26-11 for the series. Their Pythagorean record now stands at 39-55. Yikes, zoinks, and zounds, Scoob. Remember Nate Silver's pronouncement of skepticism and despair over the Cardinals? The skepticism we all decried as being far too pessimistic? Well, I don't think Silver saw Carpenter going down or the rash of injuries, but he pegged the Cards for 90 losses, which may not be out of reach. A 41.5% expected winning percentage is what the Cardinals have on the charts, that's on pace for a 95 loss season. Look on the bright side, the Cardinals will get their chance at signing one heckuva blue chip prospect in next June's draft.
Speaking of draft picks, the Cardinals came to terms with Pete Kozma. I don't know what to make of him, THT's Carlos Gomez's analyzed his swing and called it "poopy". Elsewhere, former #1 Colby Rasmus was held out of the Springfield lineup last night because his manager thinks he looks "mentally tired". Rasmus had some sort of illness that he blamed his slump on last month, and this month he was hit in the helmet by a hanging breaking ball. He's striking out in 32.2% of his at bats this month, and for July only 10% of his batted balls have been line drives. His OPS by month-.734 for April, 1.138 in May, .697 in June and .614 for July. So that's one great month and three pretty bad ones. The Cards have been pretty aggressive in promoting the likes of Rasmus, Anderson, Perez, Garcia, etc. It has paid off, with the exception being Rasmus at this point. His disappointing performance after a hot May is pretty troubling.