Lefties have an OPS of .938 vs Dotel.

Not. Good.

Sometimes, I think this team is really good. Other times, I think it sucks.

You're missing the point. He got the ground ball out of Fielder we needed.

Regardless, watching this team get micromanaged - and piss-poorly at that - is ****ing frustrating.

Down to Jay.

I am done with this team unless they win the next 2.

Then you're probably done with this team.

I wouldn't be shocked to see them get swept.

I would. They'll get at least one of the three, tomorrow will be a lot like the 11 inning game I think.

This team goes how the "big three" go.

And Holliday is the only one of the three that seems to hit against Milwaukee.

I expect Westbrook to get shelled, and Carp to pitch a gem on Thursday and get no run support, as usual.

as it should.

Milwaukee has been to the playoffs once since 1982. They sent their long term CF and SS and a top pitching prospect for Grienke. They gave top prospects for Krod they will lose fielder next year. They are all in this year. 2013 is our year.

Good thing football season is starting up. This is the most gutless Cards team I have seen in a while.

Pujols picked a bad year for his production to start to decline markedly (although his HR numbers are climbing this year). I have a feeling he may cost himself a lot of money unless things pick up. A terrible 0-5 last night and his average sits at a pedestrian .279. Although if he actually ran out ground balls, his average would be up a few points.

He definitely has spoiled us...he had his small droughts in the past, but the WORST you could expect in the past from him 3 key at bats like that last night would have been a couple of walks (didn't give in) or a couple of hard hit balls. He looked more like McGuire at the end of his career when he was trying to hit with knees made of glass.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseb...a4bcf6878.html

Who edits that shit?

And the only guy we have that hits Milwaukee worth a shit is out for the night. Tweaked his left leg during warmups.

Awesome.

:facepalm:

Holliday is turning into a giant vagina. Ridiculous.

I was also thinking on my way home from work that I would like to see AP's #s against winning teams vs shit teams this year.

Like I said, this team is gutless.

Time to put this team out to pasture. When the 30 million dollar man couldn't come through in the 9th, you just knew it was over.

Small sample size, (127 AB's) but AP's batting .228 with 3 HR and 16 RBI against winning teams.

.302 with 24 HR and 53 RBI against sub .500 teams.

Thanks. That looks about right. :facepalm:

Small sample size or not, that's pretty damn telling.

I don't care what he or anyone else says, his contract situation has played a roll in all this and I think it is his fault for the most part.

Craig is back.

Our season is saved.

Great start by Westbrook so far.

:facepalm:

No shit. Division race on the line and come out like a ****ing turd.

Did I say this team was gutless yet? Oh yea, I did.

America. **** yeah.

Yeah, the "human element' is really necessary for baseball. 15 ****ing seconds of replay fixes that bullshit.

Done.

Told you.

Seriously, I'm done with this team for the rest of the season. If they manage to go on a long streak and somehow make the playoffs, great. I just don't expect it nor do I feel like committing myself to watch them every night.

I'd rather watch the Astros every ****ing night with all their AA talent than watch this team with a manager who makes more piss poor in game managing decisions than not

Don't blame you.

I'm kicking myself for getting seats for all three games next weekend at Wrigley. And as it stands now, we'll miss Carp in the rotation.

D'oh.

I need to find a new Cardinals board. VivaElBirdos is the Warpaint Illustrated of Cards boards. There's no end to the excuses for players and LaRussa.

Still trying to figure out why Corey Patterson has become the CF fixture and started over Berkman tonight in a must win.

It's great that he has nice splits against Wolf, but if you really believe in him, why do you have him lay down a sac bunt in the first inning?

At least you'll get to see the [insert either Cubs or Cardinals here] win a series.

Seriously, I could handle everything up to this point. Was I frustrated with LaRussa's managing this season? Yes. But I didn't think it would get to this point.

His management of the bullpen is awful, platooning and batting Patterson 2nd is insane, and carrying a 3rd catcher for no ****ing reason makes no sense.

Berkman's a lifetime 3-for-30 against Wolf. Gotta go with the book. /TLR

www.gatewayredbirds.com

You'll thank me for it later.

Half the board wants Mozeliak and LaRussa gone.

:facepalm:

The homer is strong with this one.

The Reds will still have more talent than us. The Brewers will still have much better starting pitching than us and the 'core' (such as it is) will just be another year older and less interested. Who's going to save this sinking ship when Berkman's older? Afterall, he's all that's separated us from a .500 record to this point.

2012 will be hell w/ Lohse and Westbrook as our 3 and 4 and by 2013 LaRussa will have probably dumped at least 1 of the Miller/Martinez duo to cover for the fact that he traded Rasmus or Ryan. Cox is still a man without a real major league position (he doesn't have a 3b bat and Freese is the least of our problems right now). Wong's upside is that of a solid 2 hitter - how many championships have been built around Jose Vidro? And do not for one minute ignore the rumblings coming from Duncan about Jaime Garcia. He doesn't speak without LaRussa telling him what to say; when Duncan started taking veiled shots at Garcia, you found your new whipping boy. If LaRussa stays past this season, Garcia's elsewhere or mind****ed into oblivion by 2013.

As long as LaRussa, Moe and Pujols are the holy trinity upon which this team is built, there will be no 'our year'.

It's stunning to me that you can see what's happened to this team over the last 5 seasons and not understand where the problems are.

It's safe to say I will not spend another dollar on this team the rest of the season.

They signed Arthur Rhodes.

THE SEASON IS SAVED!

Guilty as charged.
But still.....

2013 Larussa is no longer with the Cardinals.

Good Pitching wins games and expecially playoff games.

2013 Pitching Staff.....every one of them capable of throwing a no hitter every time out.

Waino
Miller
Garcia
Martinez

You can't make assumptions about what this 2013 team will look like at this point.

February of 2010, who would have ever thought that we would have turned Brendan Ryan, Ryan Ludwick and Colby Rasmus into a pitcher who will never have an impact in the ML as a reliever, a garbage old set up man, a lefty in starter-reliever purgatory, a #5 who should be DFA'd, and a rental #4 starter?

Sweet.

There are certainly areas to gripe about...but let's not long for the days of John Claiborne and Vern Rapp

I had almost erased the memory of Rapp from my memory. Thanks bringing that back into full memory. :banghead:

LMAO

Carlos Zambrano gives up 5 HR in 4 innings, throws at Chipper Jones, gets ejected, cleans out his locker and tells the Cubs he's retiring.

You can't make this shit up.

That's some good shit.

LMAO

Not a bad win today by the Cards.

Didn't see it. Was too busy watching the Chiefs scrimmage.

6-1. Good outing by Lohse.

you do know they have these things called DVR's, Tivo etc., correct? ;)

Good time for Garcia to start shitting the bed.

That's his 3rd or 4th start in a row looking like ass.

Here is a blurb form the Dispatch today. I think Bernie nails it down in these paragraphs.

I'm jumping way ahead here. We should wait to analyze the final results later. Yes, I get it. But I can't help but think of the reaction and potential fallout of another also-ran season in St. Louis.
It won't be pretty. And it shouldn't be.
This is the fifth season on the books since the 2006 Cardinals won the World Series.
The Cardinals have qualified for the postseason only once in the previous four seasons. They haven't won a postseason game since the final out of that '06 World Series. And a failure to return to the playoffs in 2011 would make it just one postseason trip in five years.
That would be difficult to rationalize considering the higher standards established when owner Bill DeWitt Jr. and manager Tony La Russa took over in 1996.
A team anchored by Albert Pujols should finish first in this division more than once over a five-year period. This isn't the AL East. Or even the NL East.
And while the Cardinals don't spend at the level of the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox, the STL payroll has ranked among the top 13 annually over the past five seasons. This year, DeWitt jacked the payroll to $109 million, which ranks 10th in MLB. If anything, DeWitt isn't getting value for his payroll dollars.

From the article:

Nearly 70 percent of the 2011 payroll is consolidated among six players: Pujols, Holliday, Carpenter, Kyle Lohse, Berkman and Jake Westbrook.

After 2012, at least 3 of them, maybe 4 won't be here and off the books.

Another significant issue is roster composition. While technically that's the domain of GM John Mozeliak, it's also true that Mozeliak has to strive to find players compatible with La Russa's wishes.

Larussa is here for one more year, at the most. As long as they don't trade Miller/Martinzez and ruin Garcia in a year. We will survive.

Albert didn't miss that one, but goddamn, Edwin Jackson ****ing sucks.

He's like 0-5 and has over a 5 ERA against them in his career.

Any time you can piss away 3 years of cost-controlled CF play (who happened to put up the #1 OPS among qualified CFers last season) to cater to the wishes of an insane lame-duck manager, you really have to.

I can't say how refreshing it will be to see LaRussa go, I just hope we don't replace him with Oquendo or keep Mozeliak. The entire regime needs to be shown the door. Rest assured, there will not be a long list of suitors for Moe's services as a GM.

Espn says it's the longest home run ever hit at Bush stadium III. We need this game. We are within striking distance of the wild card now. If we win the division or the wild card we will have been playing damn good ball going into the playoffs or we won't be in the playoffs.

We got Pitt twice, cubs, dodgers and Milwaukee. Thats an opportunity to make a run.

Funny you mention this, because some asshat on VEB was trying to tell me that there was no downgrade in the move b/c Jay's and Colby's wOBAs were nearly identical.

:facepalm:

As I said, that place is intolerably homeristic.

Great play by Furcal, there. Theriot couldn't do that if the batter had peg legs.

Why the aren't you at www.gatewayredbirds.com yet, man?

Don't see where I can sign up.

I think the admin disabled signing up for now due to a spam problem. I'll ask him if he can open it up for you to join.

He has defintely been worth what we gave up. :thumb:

I think I tried to sign up too and couldn't.

Registration is closed at the moment due to spam bots. If the admin opens the registration back up, which he might, there should be a small window of time for registration to resume.

And that's what kills me about Mo. He doesn't understand buying low vs. selling high.

If he wanted to trade a CF, he should have traded Jay. Getting Furcal for peanuts was a good move. Moving Perez after the org had dismantled his confidence was idiotic.

With rare exceptions, the team constantly acquires players in a backwards fashion

At times I think Mozeliak is a genius, at other times I think he's a complete idiot.

Mo trading Rasmus is on Larussa's head not Mo's.

After all of TLR's comments, it was untennable for Rasmus to stay.

And Rolen. And Ludwick. And Ryan.

How 'bout you ditch that jackass that keeps making things 'untenable' for talented ballplayers?

Oh, and for what it's worth, Rasmus still had options available. The Marlins just sent Logan Morrison to AAA to give him time away from the major league club, why not do the same with Rasmus? It's not like we actually got anything back for him. The White Sox traded Jackson for Frasor and someone's willingness to take on Teahen's deal: that was Jackson's trade value. We just got Rhodes for free, who's about as useful against lefties as Scrabble. And Dotel/Patterson are, at best, replacement level.

We literally gave Colby Rasmus away - why not send him to AAA until this LaRussa problem reaches its merciful end?

I agree. Those are on Larussa, not Mo.

I don't think we have any Card fans on here that think Larussa is doing a great job.

My only concern is that you see clubs make a move on a manger and it gets worse, not better.

Um, the Ludwick trade isn't bad.

They spent the same amount of money on Berkman. You can complain about the money Mo gave to Westbrook, but I'd say the trade is fairly even.

But you can bitch about the Ryan and Rasmus trades.

Edited to add: The White Sox got Frasor and Stewart in return for Jackson.

Well, that probably means I won't be subjected to Edwin Jackson at Wrigley next weekend.

WHOOO!

Aw, ****. It's only a cramp.

Yeah, but Gregerson as a throw in and $20 mil/season for your 4th and 5th starters is on Moe.

There's plenty of shit to pile around Moe's ankles as well. At his very best, he's a below average general manager. At worst, he's one of the 5 worst in baseball. I'm inclined to put him closer to the latter than the former.

Again, I don't see how you can blame Mo for those deals. His hand was forced by Larussa. His bargaining position undercut by Larussa's actions and public words. Teams knew Mo had to move the players regardless of the price.

Good work by Motte.

The problem isn't that. If Mo had any balls, he could've told LaRussa to shut up and not talk about it.

I also believe Mo could have gotten a better deal. The question is who would have offered it.

They spent a couple million more to get Berkman, in fact.

And to get Jake !@#$ing Westbrook in return for Ryan Ludwick when you were in the middle of a playoff drive was pathetic. You'll note that Ludwick drove in the game winning run that put us a game ahead of the Reds last July - he was traded that night and the team immediately collapsed.

Even if you want to view the trade for how it worked out this year - it absolutely destroyed the team last season.

And you're right, the Chisox also got Zach Stewart - a 25 yr old reliever with marginal upside that hasn't been a regular starter since AA. He's essentially PJ Walters - huzzah.

We gave up Colby Rasmus - again, a 24 yr old CFer that led the position in OPS at 23 yrs old - for a player that the Blue Jays gave up the equivalent of Mitchell Boggs and PJ Walters for.

Fantastic work, Moe.

and just how do you know this information? Who offered a better deal?

Still not sure why Hamas hates the guy - he's been a very good reliever this season and I'm not at all convinced that the Indians got the better of the Motte/Perez discussion.

Perez's performance over the last month is starting to line up with the peripherals and stuff he's exhibited for most of the season. He's either hurt or on the verge of burning out. He's lost a lot of velocity and movement this season. His command hasn't really improved either. That's a recipe for disaster (and the dangers of making your living with a slider).

22 straight apperances and no earned runs. Man, I didn't know he had been that good.

The Rays offered both Alex Cobb and a Howell/Niemann deal - both of those are much better than the one we took.

And reports are that there were at least 4 other teams making deals.

You honestly believe that Frasor/Stewart was the absolute best deal offered?

My point is if Mo wasn't offered a good deal, which I don't think he was, he shouldn't have accepted the Blue Jays offer and stuck with Colby.

Does Skip Schumaker do a single thing well?

Well, apart from 'care'. Because Dan and Al remind us constantly about how much he cares. Nobody cares more about Skip's many ****ups than Skip - I know because I get told that 4 times per game.