What do you really say about a game like that one? Not a whole lot, that's what.
Okay, so let's review.
The largest brewery in America, a longtime St. Louis landmark, is pretty much screwed.
Our baseball team was beaten last night by eighteen runs.
The status of our ace pitcher, Chris Carpenter, is now up in the air following yet another setback.
Our young turk pitcher has a bad finger and may not be back for quite a while.
The greatest hitter in baseball, who just happens to play for the Cardinals, is out with a bad calf and is probably out until the All Star break.
Oh, and by the way, each and every last one of you are going to die someday.
Okay, any other bad news?
I hate to possibly put myself out on a limb and invite more hatred and ridicule, (thanks everyone, particularly Azruavatar, damn your black heart) but I was watching Todd Wellemeyer last night, and he doesn't look healthy to me. Obviously, his velocity was fine and his delivery looked okay, but there was one number that, to me, really stood out to me. 49. That's the number of strikes that Wellemeyer threw out of his 90 pitches on the evening. A guy coming back from an elbow injury who barely throws more than half of his pitches for strikes is a huge red flag. Elbow injuries typically manifest themselves as control issues, whereas shoulder issues tend to pop up in the gun readings. He was still throwing hard last night, but he absolutely could not get the ball down. Such a marked lack of command, after the way he had thrown for most of the year, scares the living bejesus out of me. Hopefully, it was just rust, but I worry that Wellemeyer may be throwing on borrowed time right now.
Hmm...I'm looking for good news currently, to try and offset my cavalcade of gloom this morning. Oh, my cat Tennessee doesn't have ringworm like I thought. It's just a rash. Not good enough, huh? Kay. Let's see, anything good.
Albert is going to try and make a comeback more quickly than is being predicted. So, that's pretty good, right? Of course, if he rushes back and hurts himself again, then the season really is over. So, maybe not such a good idea.
Wow, this sucks. Just about a week ago, virtually everything was looking outstanding for the Cardinals. They had a dynamite one two punch at the top of the rotation in Wainwright and Wellemeyer, an offense that was really coming around in June, and a possible cavalry on the way. Now, not so much.
So, are we ready to write off the season? Or do we still think the Cards can hold on long enough to get their players back healthy and make a run? You have to think the Cubs are going to have to come down to earth at least a little, but they look as if they may, in fact, be nearly this good of a team. I would expect them to drop off a bit at home, but it's going to be awfully hard to catch them. Maybe the wild card? I don't necessarily see a whole lot of other teams just catching fire around the league, so the wild card could very well be an option.
So, this is my question to you. What do we do now? Should the Cardinals start looking to sell off some of their valuable veteran pieces and go into that full rebuilding mode that many of us were calling for during the offseason? The Cards have a couple of young pitchers that could probably come up and at least hold their own. Probably a little early, but we could get a look.
Or, should they try to bring in a veteran presence to try and stabilise the team? Brian Roberts still looks to be available, though I'm sure the cost would be pretty steep. I'm sure the Cards could put together a package strong enough to entice the Orioles, but would it be worth it? There are a few veteran pitchers available too, with C.C. Sabathia at the head of the list. I highly doubt the Cards could afford the package that a guy like Sabathia would cost, but there are others that they might be able to afford.
So, that's the question I have for you this morning. With how the Cardinals are standing right now, with bad news flying in from all sides, which way do you think they should go? Tear it apart, or try to buttress the walls? Or, maybe you think it's still way too premature for any of this, and they should just stand pat and see what happens?
I'm really sorry about all the gloom and doom this morning, everybody. Kind of hard to find a silver lining in this particular bank of clouds, though. So, what do we do about it?