Hey, you—potential St. Louis Cardinals content consumer! There's been some good stuff going on at SB Nation St. Louis and in our own FanPosts section, which can be read at this link in a kind of shadow-blog format with its own RSS feed. Here, with some commentary, are some links to that good stuff.
SB Nation St. Louis
The Legopiece Theater: Dugout Abbey saga has continued, with Alex Fritz's Game of Thrones-ian cast of characters expanding for an interview with the St. Louis Sign Guy and Yadier Molina's very discreet doctor.
In non-Lego news, I've been really happy to run more of Nathan Grimm's work on the site, since I don't get the chance to do a lot of longer work about the Cardinals there myself. Here's a feature about what Chris Carpenter's return will do to the Cardinals' rotation.
Also: The last time Carlos Beltran was as good as he's been this year was the last time he appeared to be healthy.
Viva El Birdos
I've always thought it a little strange how different the clientele sometimes is between the commenters on the main posts and the writers and commenters in the FanPost section, and here's a good example: I've yet to come into contact with noted Simpsons character and new VEB member tmcclure, who has zero comments to date, but he's already made three fun FanPosts since joining the site earlier this month.
Here's a look at the Cardinals' numerical dominance just before the current losing streak began; this week he took a look at whether Lance Lynn is presently on pace to be the best Cardinals pitcher ever.
Elsewhere, elidajuiceman, another new member, takes a long look at Tyler Greene and comes out of it hoping for Kolten Wong to get to St. Louis as soon as possible.
After today's starting lineup was announced with Skip Schumaker in center field, the St. Louis Cardinals announced that starting center fielder Jon Jay would be heading to the disabled list due to continued pain from the shoulder he separated during a collision with the Busch Stadium outfield wall last month. The club recalled outfielder Shane Robinson from Memphis just a few days after demoting the right-handed hitter to make room for Lance Berkman after the veteran's activation from the disabled list.
You Can't Win Them All or Luck Evens Out, Eventually aren't quite sabermetrically appropriate phrases, but there's something more satisfying about them than the idea of things regressing to the mean. I think it's because there's an element of moral judgment to the first two that appeals to me, as someone who always feels bad when too many things go his way at once.
So when the Cardinals lost yesterday that irrational part of me thought, hey, why get greedy? The Cardinals can't win every game, or else you're going to get bored and you'll have to start a new Baseball Mogul franchise. They still had 10 hits, including two each from Yadier Molina, Lance Berkman, and Allen Craig, and Jake Westbrook still got his groundballs.
At no point in the Cardinals' recent losing skid have things, in aggregate, stopped breaking their way. Their expensive catcher, whose OPS+ is still 131, narrowly avoided a season-altering injury, and their first baseman just got back from one that didn't affect their offensive output at all. Lance Lynn's back-down-to-earth start was three runs in six innings. Carlos Beltran's knee soreness—that one's worrying, since Beltran's currently hitting .295/.403/.648, but it's not a disaster yet and it's just in time for us to start wondering just how Craig is going to get at-bats.
You Can't Win All The Regressing, I guess. If Adam Wainwright's going to get better—and he almost definitely is—and Lance Berkman's going to play more than seven games out of every 35 this year, and Chris Carpenter's going to come back after the All-Star Break, instead of never, then the Cardinals are going to have to win a few Jake Westbrook starts with their bats.
For all that non-fatalism, though, I like the Cardinals' rapid response to this losing streak—dropping J.C. Romero in favor of Eduardo Sanchez.
The Chicago Cubs swamped the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium on Monday night. The Cubs landed 22 runners on base by hit, walk, and St. Louis error. Despite only plating 6 of their baserunners, the Cubs managed to defeat the Cardinals 6-4 in the first game of the clubs' two-game series.
After a 1-2-3 first inning, starter Jake Westbrook had a rough outing. The sinkerballer allowed 11 hits and 2 walks in 5 innings pitched. Somehow, Westbrook only allowed 4 runs before leaving after 107 pitches thrown. He exited trailing 4-0 at the game's halfway point.
The Cardinals offense rallied to get Westbrook off the decision hook with a four-run sixth, but the Cubs bounced back with yet more baserunners. Jon Jay led things off with a single and Matt Holliday did the same. After Allen Craig flew out to center for the first out, Lance Berkman singled in Jay to make it a 4-1 game. David Freese then drew a walk and was thrown out at home on an double by Yadier Molina that drove in Holliday and Berkman. Skip Schumaker then floated a single to left field that scored Molina and made it a 4-4 game. Pinch-hitting for Eduardo Sanchez, Matt Carpenter struck out to end the inning.
Sanchez made his 2012 big-league debut in impressive fashion with a scoreless sixth that included a strikeout. Victor Marte threw a scoreless seventh, pitching his way around a hit and two Mike Matheny-ordered intentional walks with two strikeouts. Mitchell Boggs had another rough outing due to both his pitching and the Cardinals poor defense behind him. Boggs pitched the eighth and the ninth innings and wound up the "losing" pitcher with a line that featured two runs (one earned), two hits, one walk, two strikeouts, and two errors by his defense.
It was all-around ugly effort from the Redbirds on Monday night. The loss extends the St. Louis losing streak to four games--all at home. The two-game series concludes tomorrow at 12:45 P.M. CDT.
Earlier today, the St. Louis Cardinals announced that they had unconditionally released veteran left-handed reliever J.C. Romero. Taking Romero's spot in the bullpen will be right-hander Eduardo Sanchez, who has apparently showed enough improvement with his mechanics and control in in the eyes of the front office to merit the promotion. The release of Romero and promotion of Sanchez means only one southpaw remains in the Cardinals bullpen. With only a single lefty remaining in the bullpen, who will fact opposing left-handed batters?
The St. Louis Cardinals have unconditionally released lefty J.C. Romero and activated right-handed pitcher Eduardo Sanchez from AAA Memphis, according to the team:
Reliever J.C. Romero has been unconditionally released. Right-hander Eduardo Sanchez has been activated and will join the team tonight.
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) May 14, 2012
Romero, 35, has just eight innings-pitched and a 10.13 ERA for the 2012 season. In fourteen seasons, he spent seven with the Minnesota Twins from 1999-2007, and five with the Philadelphia Phillies between 2007-2011. He also spent parts of seasons with the Rockies, Red Sox, and Angels before signing with the Cardinals in December for $750K.
Romero has a career 4.15 ERA and has earned a touch more than seven wins above replacement throughout his career.
