No shit the guy pitches like a hall of famer against us.

This has gotten ugly really fast.

No shit. Bad teams seem to be the Cards kryptonite.

And, of course, the inning should have been over long ago. ****ing Freese. :shake:

Un ****ing believable.

So why the hell can't he run down the line? His lax attitude to breaking out of the box just cost him an injury (if he comes out of the box hard, there's no 'burst' required). It costs him a handful of baserunners every season. When a player is busting it down the line, it forces hurried throws, pushes the action and creates havoc (be it errors or flat out poor decisions on where to go with the ball). It's not just routine grounders, its double play groundballs that he doesn't bother to run out. When the opposing 2b knows he has plenty of time, he takes that extra crow hop and that ball is straight and true on the turn.

But he's just fine when its time to run a stop-sign at 3rd.

I am not okay with selective hustle, I'm just not. And it's also something that has spread to other guys on the team (i.e. Molina and last season, Flip). You run down the line, period. There are very few things in this game you can control - effort chief among them.

Again - this is a franchise that has guys like Schoendist, Musial and Brock in its legacy. This is a franchise that has always taken pride in the fact that they play the game "the Cardinal Way". They don't jog down the line; they don't settle for a single when a double's there to be had (and yes, Albert has done that twice this season, including one where a ball skipped off the wall and actually took the OFer to his knee to field it). They busted their asses and clawed for every inch. Men like Red and George Kissell epitomized that era and now the franchise has been bastardized by LaRussa and his pets. It's a shame to see LaRussa disregard what those guys did to make 'Cardinal Baseball' a brand in and of itself.

So we have Pujols peeling off before he even gets to first on double play balls and LaRussa has the audacity to defend it as "Something Stan and Red would've done..." We have Yadi lazily flipping his glove out to stop pitches wide of the plate instead of sliding to block them. We have Freese playing bouncers off his hip instead of squaring up to them and we have Colby Rasmus catching fly balls flat-footed.

It annoys the absolute hell out of me and Albert's 'routine' is the most obvious example of it. I don't 'blame' Albert for it, I blame LaRussa for it. At the same time, I'm damn sure not going to give Albert a pass for it.

Gotta love seeing LaRussa go to the 40 year old ****ing dinosaur in the bullpen instead of Sanchez, Salas or even Motte, who have all pitched extremely well this season and have power arms, when we could've really used a strikeout.

The 3 worst relievers in our bullpen are Batista, Miller and Franklin and yet LaRussa continues to send those guys out there to get us beat night after night.

4321 Freese

Nice AB there, David. Way to be behind every fastball he threw then finally stare at one down the gullet.

Here's a tip - when you're behind the fastball, you probably shouldn't start guessing breaking ball to compensate. That generally makes you look like a shithead with men on 1st and 3rd.

Just a suggestion.

When we scored 3 runs with 2 outs it was because of the ss error.

It's really pissing me off too. All they are doing is throwing up 0.00's. Let our young bullpen studs loose.

Hey look - another player doesn't play focused baseball and Pence is hanging at 2b because of it.

These guys do not play the game the right way - period.

Please, please, please get Hall out.

If not, DFA Batista.

YEA!!!!

MILLER'S UP AND THROWING! HE'LL SAVE US!

Thank God Berkman dug out that throw or Descalso would've never played another inning at 2b.