 |  |
| Rodriguez | Lohse |
| 0-0, 1.50 | 1-0, 2.57 |
I’ve made a lot, and others have as well, of the Cards’ inferior lineup when we face a lefty. Skip, Ankiel, Rasmus, and Duncan simply aren’t the same hitters against lefties they are against righties and, w/ Glaus on the shelf, we simply don’t have the firepower against southpaws that we have when a RHP is on the mound. It should be noted today, then, that Wandy Rodriguez, for his career, has almost no platoon split. His career OPS against right handed batters is .776 and against left handed batters it’s .765. He does have a 2.43 K/BB ratio against lefties as opposed to 2.01 against righties but the OBP and SLG are about the same and the sample size isn’t small. He is likely to face only the opposition’s best left handed hitters, however, and relatively inferior right handed hitters but it’s still not a demonstrable split.
Where he does have a demonstrable split is between his career performance at home and on the road. At home, for his career, he has a 4.07 ERA and a .725 OPS against. On the road they’re 5.51 and .832. Strangely, he has a 2.84 ERA in 2 new Busch starts w/ a .668 OPS against. Still, he’s clearly not the same pitcher on the road as he is in that big top known as Minute Maid Park.
Lohse had a nice outing against the Pirates his first time out. He walked just 1 in 7 innings and registered 14 ground balls to just 8 in the air. He did give up the one homer – a problem during the spring – but if he can get a lot of grounders today, I’d say our chances of getting the sweep are pretty good – lefty or not on the mound.