This is a great example of a manger's stupidity: 2nd and 3rd, 2 outs. Mattingly walks Jay to face Kozma.

Jay is a .274 hitter. He needs to get a hit to score a run.
Kozma's OBP is .326. He only needs to get on base to score a run.

Regardless of the outcome, that is a tactically awful decision.

Left shoulder tightness for Gast.

**** you, SI.

What channel is the game on? I can't find it.

Fox (not FSMW, but Fox proper). It's the Saturday featured game.

I can't get it, then. Stuck with the White Sox.

****ing Fox 4321

Maybe in the midwest but not down here.:cuss:

I get the ATL game. I have the MLB cable package. MLB.TV and I still can't watch the game. I don't get MLB and Fox. Do they think fans will go ohhh welll I'll just watch a regular season game because its the only game on? If so, how many fans will make that choice?

Westbrook is going to get a second opinion from Andrews (death sentence), and Carpenter felt poorly after his last bullpen session.

Wacha might be the only option left at this point.

Carpenter committed a one out error on a bad hop. Crawford reached. Ellis just lined a two-out double into the LF corner to put the Dodgers up 4-3.

Why don't they send Martinez down and have him get his arm in starter shape?

Seriously. I'm not watching the White Sux and Marlins. Yuck.

But I'd be watching the Cardinals on the regional Fox channel, and since I'm not their advertisers are losing money.

Brilliant!

It's not a bad idea, but what do you do for the next month? If Gast is hurt someone has to fill his spot.

Mattingly just double switched Matt Kemp out for Skip Schumaker. Kemp proceeds to dog cuss Mattingly as he hits the pine.

By performing said double switch, Mattingly has now protected the guy who has three hits, three RBI, and has reached base all four times with the pitcher's spot.

who knows? you can't plan on losing all these starting pitching. We have the deepest starting pitching in MLB and we can't just have 2 MLB quality starters just waiting their turn to pitch. We have one but do they want to fire that bullet?

Nice bobble.

Calculated Risk:

Send Rosenthal down to stretch him out, slowly try and acclimate Martinez for the 8th.

Rosenthal's clock has already started, Wacha is on his first year of pitching every five days, and Martinez has devastating stuff.

Just had another near collision with Jay in the OF. He has to take better control of the fielders out there.

im glad kemps weak ass got pissed off, Dude has been a ****ing joke this year. He has like what 2 home runs? i think its 1 actually. Mattingly is going out swining! lol You cant reduce players pay checks or fire big money players, so why not embarrass him a little. Nothing else has worked.

29th in ****ing runs scored with a 200m dollar pay role. Pathetic.

Boggs is toast. DFA his ass.

Shu bailed his ass out from a total disaster of an inning. But he still has no business pitching in the big leagues. He needs to get his head in order.

I understand your frustration. I'll also say this: from what I've seen, Mattingly is, along with Ron Roenneke, the worst manager in the National League.

I want Mattingly gone like last month. I agree, he ****ing does stupid shit, but i was ok with him benching Matt during the end of the game like that. Just for the embarrassment part.

Mattingly tries to be that im your friend not your manager type bullshit.

Anyways, yallh ave to face Kershaw and his 1.35 era tomorrow

Crazy idea:

Trade Beltran to a team that needs hitting for a #4 starter entering his FA year. I don't know if Beltran has a NTC, but it might be the only way to stabilize the rotation.

Move Craig to right and Adams to first. I doubt we'd lose much of anything offensively.

Yeah, this series was a horrible matchup for us. Two soft tossing lefties and Kershaw. I'm just glad we're not going to get swept.

He's damn good. But, we don't have a scrub going tomorrow like we did tonight. Miller has a 1.74 ERA. He was a broken bat bloop hit from a perfect game this month.

Should be a great pitchers duel.:thumb:

Yes, Beltran has a no trade clause.

Who do the Dodger fans want as their next manager? Any rumors of LaRussa?

From what i heard is the reason they havent fired him yet, is they wanna see if Mike Soscia (spelling) gets fired. I have no idea if thats true or not, but Dodger fans love him. Possibly the Dodgers AAA coach Tim Wallach. Its the only 2 names i have heard.

Because Scioscia has done so well with a squad filled with overpriced and overrated free agents...

Beltran gets the day off. Craig in RF. Adams sits on the bench and Delcasco plays.

Just where is the stats that show Delcasco hits lefties better than Adams. And those stats are so lopsided that we have to keep Adams on the bench.

Who the hell is playing 1B?

Although Descalso does seem to have a history of crushing great pitchers.

Wacha has reportedly been scratched for his start today with speculation that he is being called up with Gast being placed on the DL.

im not saying i want him, its just what i heard. Mike has a huge fan base amongst the dodger fans. everyone absolutely loved him as a player.

I have no idea who will be the next guy when Mattingly is fired.

Lets close the door boys.

Nice day by Kozma, 4-4, 3 doubles.

He has been a nice surprise this year.

And my man Rosenthal..... 5 outs over two innings. Bases loaded 100mph strikeout. Gets Kemp to ground into a double play. dude is a stud.

So, are you familiar with Michael Blazek?

Never heard the name before. But, I guess he is going to get the next spot start. Which makes me wonder, why was Wacha scratched if its not to be called up? Whats the problem?

WOW stat of the day from Sculley on the broadcast.

Only 9 Cardinals remain on the 25 man roster from the 2011 WS winning team.

Question for the group. Taveras hasn't played in two weeks now. Suppose to be a day to day thing initially. With the Cardinals history of way under estimating injuries............ is this something to worry about?

I think you answered your own question.

Unfortunately......yes.

You guys are going to crush the Royals this week, the boys in blue have quit on the season.

I don't know about that. You guys always seem to play above your talent level against us especially at the K.

Not when 3 of the starters are rookies and the bullpen is being overused.

Blazek has been pitching out of the pen. Wacha is still in the mix, depending on whether they think there are other viable options. I don't think they really want to bring him up, but I am sure Kelly and Cleto (who has been working as a starter this year) give them pause as well.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/socce...52bcc387d.html

The match between Chelsea and Manchester City on Thursday at Busch Stadium was the first high-level international match in St. Louis in years. With the way the city reacted, it probably won’t be the last.
“We’d come back here every day if we could,” said Charlie Stillitano of Relevent Sports, which put on the game. “St. Louis has been a great find for us.”

The game sold out more than 40,000 tickets in a little more than a day, and more than 10,000 fans came out to Busch on Wednesday for a Chelsea training session. “This is extraordinary,” Stillitano said.

“The way the teams were treated,” he said, “the teams have said they would come back in a second. They love it. The one thing that struck everyone was how nice everyone was in St. Louis. Everywhere we went, it was thank you for bringing the game here. That was really gratifying.”

The demand for tickets may have been enhanced by the absence of top-level soccer in St. Louis in recent years, but Stillitano said he didn’t think it would be necessary to wait a few years.

“We’d love to come back every year to St. Louis,” he said. “But our season is short, the end of the year like this and then in July and August in the preseason and can’t coincide with the Cardinals. But you can almost always find a game at the beginning or end of a tour that will fit in with the Cardinals schedule.”

Big week for Billikens

The St. Louis U. soccer team got to enjoy every part of the friendly match except for the game itself.
They were among the few people on hand on Tuesday when Chelsea worked out at Hermann Stadium – SLU players drove Chelsea players from the locker rooms at SLU to the stadium in golf carts – and they watched Wednesday’s practice from the Cardinals dugout, escorted by former SLU basketball player Kyle Cassity, who now works for the Cardinals. But by game time on Thursday, the team was on its way to Spain for a 10-day tour there.

“Pretty cool week,” said SLU coach Mike McGinty. “Missing the game is not ideal, but going to Madrid will be a lot of fun as well.”

SLU will play two and possibly a third game against fourth division Spanish teams and also attend practice sessions of first division Spanish clubs, including Atletico Madrid. SLU will also attend Atletico Madrid’s match on Sunday.

“It’s fun for these guys to see the best in the world up close,” McGinty said. “That’s as important as anything.”

As for McGinty, was he picking up anything by watching Chelsea practice? “They do the same stuff we do,” he said. “It just looks a lot different when they do it.”

Moving on

Three Chelsea players will be heading back to England after the game, missing the second match between the clubs in New York on Saturday. Frank Lampard, Gary Cahill and Ashley Cole are heading home to join England’s national team for a pair of friendly matches against Ireland and Brazil. Cahill and Cole were both in the starting lineup on Thursday, while Lampard was a scratch.
The cost of business

By acquiring Major League Soccer’s newest expansion team, Manchester City put a big dent in the hopes of a team coming to St. Louis.

Man City is owned by members of the Abu Dhabi royal family – advertising boards at the game touted visitabudhabi.ae, an Abu Dhabi tourism site – and they didn’t flinch at paying a $100 million expansion fee. But that sets the price for future expansion teams to pay, and in a market the size of St. Louis, that’s a lot of money to pay out. And anyone acquiring a team would face the added expense of building a stadium.

To a certain extent, though, the question is moot. No one from St. Louis is actively pursuing a team, and if the league moves beyond 20 teams, it will likely be looking at cities in Florida.

I think we all can just kick back for the next 4 days. :D

Our Time?

Yep, just trade for James Shields and all problems are solved.

Great game by Yadi today, but I thought Wainy looked a bit off, still a very quality start by him though. Lets take the next 3.

He was off, but he also got BABIP'ed to death. Through the first three innings he'd given up 8 hits and maybe one ball was solidly hit. They had two flares that dropped in No Man's Land, a grounder that hit the bag and popped over Adams' head, a liner that popped out of Adams' glove, and a couple of other 39 hoppers up the middle.

Oh, and it looks like C-Mart is the answer, as he was sent down to AAA w/ them calling up Marte. Given Marte's suckitude, it looks like they are going to stretch out Little Pedro.

makes sense. They had already started or had decided to start the service time clock.

Sending him down for a month to stretch out can also help him avoid Super Two status, should he qualify.

Oh I know that, I mentioned it on their Royals thread, most of them were BS bloop singles because their hitters are so weak and they just found the spots. They got only 3 runs on 13 hits, all singles except one hit. I had to chuckle at that. LMAO

Wacha gets the call for Thursday night against KC.

Officially excited.

He shouldn't be worried about facing that line up. lol

The Cardinals had 5 extra base hits plus 5 walk yesterday; essentially 10 instances of 'free' bases.

The Royals had 2 - 1 double and 1 HBP.

That was the difference in the ballgame - banjo hitters that won't take walks simply won't win anything...ever. It's just out of date thinking; they've built a dead-ball era squad with no speed to supplement it.

I don't get it at all.

Fantastic!:thumb:

I'm okay with the move. Let the FA clock start ticking on all the stud young pitchers.

We have six years for all these guys. So what they all go to FA at the same time. Thats a damn good window. And we got 6 years to find the next ones.

Miller
Martinez
Rosenthal
Wacha

Waino's contract will be up by then and we will be able to keep one. Who knows if they will all remain healthy? We got a good chance of winning another WS trophy this year.

I will never understand why certain teams and players don't get the value of a walk. It just baffles me.

Part of the issue is the extreme lack of power.

Royals hitters don't hit for much power, so why NOT challenge them even when behind in the count.

But I thought we don't develop all our own players? :LOL:

True, but are you really gonna tell me that Hosmer, Gordon, Moustakas and Butler don't have more power than Matt Carpenter?

And Carpenter will simply outwork pitchers into drawing walks.

And like I said in the other thread - the Cardinals are 27th in baseball in HRs on their own. They're in the bottom 1/3 in slugging%. But they're among the best in baseball at drawing walks.

The Cardinals have very few players that will give away ABs, the Royals lineup is mostly comprised of precisely that.

St. Louis is a shithole of a city

That is the problem 100%. Not only do the Royals have zero pop, they literally NEVER make the pitchers pay for their mistakes.

It baffles us, too.

Must be infuriating to see Allen Craig rake while their high end prospects flounder

They do have more raw power.

I can't tell you the number of cookies I've seen Hosmer, Moustakas, Francoeur, Getz, Johnson and Escobar just miss.

You can throw most of those guys an average to fringe-average fastball over the heart of the plate, and right now the worst thing you're going to see is a single, probably to the opposite field.

It's probably the most frustrating thing I've ever watched happen as a baseball fan.

Let me clarify my in-and-out statement from yesterday, though: I wasn't placing the lack of walks ALL on the lack of power. A big part of it is the approach, and it's clear the organization doesn't focus on preaching patience. A couple of guys - Butler and Gordon - do a nice job taking walks when given the opportunity.

Just another thing about Moore's minor league operation that is clearly broken.

All right, Chiefsplanet Cardinals fans. I respect the opinions of this contingent of Cardinals fans. Lot of good, hardcore baseball minds in the room (Or thread, whatever).

I have recently seen Cardinals fans on another message board freak the f*** out on a few things and want to get this group's take.

1) Would Alex Gordon start for the Cardinals? This was a very hotly contested point. I'm not sure what team or fanbase WOULDN'T want to find a spot for a guy on pace to hit .330/.370/.500, with 100 R and 100 RBI in a shit-tastic lineup, but apparently the group of Cards fans I was talking to would not. I pointed out Gordon's positional versatility - his ability to play LF, RF or 3B - and that he has been one of the best all-around players in baseball over the past 2.25 seasons.

The debate quickly turned into Holliday vs Gordon, though. (I know where Frazod would weigh in). Even there, the (factual) statement that the gap offensively has closed greatly as Gordon began to figure things out and as Holliday started to decline seemed to insult many, who wanted to point to career stats as the reason Holliday would start NOW.

Thoughts?

2) Wainwright and Shields. This one is fresh. Cardinals fans were talking about Wainwright being "obviously" head and shoulders above Shields. When recent performances - again, each guy's past three years, not a one-year sample size - were compared and it was pointed out that they have been nearly identical pitchers, people flipped out.

Is the suggestion that James Shields and Adam Wainwright are both top 20 pitchers, slotting somewhere in the tier below the Verlander/Kershaw/King Felix/etc. elite group really that crazy or insulting?

3) Billy Butler has a shot at 3000 hits. Someone commented they were shocked Butler already had 1000 MLB hits. Someone else said he had a shot at 3000 hits. Outrage ensued. Being honest, I think we can all say it's unlikely Butler ages extremely well. But he also has been an incredibly durable player and consistent hitter. He would need 12 more seasons in which he averages 167 hits to get to the mark (or about 11 more at his current career hits average). The odds are not great - mostly because that would mean Butler would have to play without injury and at a similarly high level well into his mid-to-late 30s - but there is a SHOT.

There have been a few more (there was an uproar when someone said a year or so ago that they hoped Sal Perez could be as good as Molina, that I still don't get), but those are the main ones.

Interested in reactions of Cardinals fans I know and respect. Thanks, guys.

I'm okay with Holliday. I mean, I'm never going to rush out and buy a Holliday jersey, but he's our No. 1 guy, like it or not. I just hope he's still useful in October.

Right now the top three records in baseball are all in the NL Central led by the Cardinals. St. Louis is on pace for a franchise record 108 wins.

When you have the Cubs and Brewers in the central this happens.

This is why Interleague rivalries are dumb. 4 games Cards vs Royals , Pirates vs Tigers , Reds vs Indians. These 4 games could cost the Reds and Pirates, While the Cards get 4 easy wins.

But alas, no more Astros.

1) Would Alex Gordon start for the Cardinals?

I think you'd have to find a place for him, but really - Holliday's not going anywhere. A) He just flat makes too much money. But really, it's more than that. He's a damn gutty player and I think he's a good 'complementary' leader. He's a guy that is a great 'leader by example'. I think you need vocal leaders as well, but Holliday's been a winning ballplayer his whole career and I do think the young players on this roster respect the hell out of him and how he approaches the game.

Gordon can't really play CF and Beltran can't either. In 2014 you'd have an easy answer - Beltran walks, Gordon plays RF and Taveras gets wedged into CF. In 2013, however, I'd rather have Beltran. You forget how nice it is to have a switch hitter in the center of your lineup until you have one. Apart from that, Beltran's just a timely HR machine. I like Gordon a lot and ultimately Beltran will have a streak where he's completely lost at some point this year, but Beltran's ability to switch hit combined with his HR pop gives him the edge, IMO. And while Gordon's not had a chance to prove it, I think it's extremely unlikely that he proves himself to be the post-season player that Beltran has shown to be.

But if you truly believe he's capable of playing 3b - there's your answer. I'd play him ahead of Freese all day, every day. He's simply a better player.

2) Wainwright and Shields.

Sorry, gonna have to agree with the other Cards fans here, but only because I think Wainwright was criminally underrated in 2009 and 2010. A Gold Glove winner, back to back top 3 finishes in the CY voting. 200+ Ks, leading the league in IPs while putting up an ERA+ of 155 and 160. That Adam Wainwright wasn't a tier below anyone. He didn't throw as hard as some of the guys you mentioned, but he was every bit as effective as Kershaw, Felix and essentially anyone else (Verlander's absurd year notwithstanding). No, Adam Wainwright was not a 2nd tier ace in 2009 or 2010 - he was as good as anyone there was.

This year he looks more like that Wainwright than the 2012 model. He's also a guy that's shown the stones to strike out one of the greatest post-season hitters in history in a Game 7 on the road with the winning run on base.

Ultimately, prior to this season, Shields has had only 1 truly great year. And yeah, 2011 was a remarkable season for him, but I don't think it was better than Wainwright's 2009 and it certainly wasn't better than his 2010. And if he's truly back to that form, and it looks like he might be, he's simply a little better pitcher than Shields with a better resume.

3) Billy Butler has a shot at 3000 hits.

Here's the problem, I once had this exact same discussion regarding Edgar Renteria. At the same age Billy Butler is now, Edgar had nearly 1,500 hits and had just come off the most productive 3 years of his career. He was a lynchpin hitter for a 105 win ballclub and looked for all the world like a guy that could reach 3,000.

He didn't even make it to 2,400.

The conversation doesn't matter. Sure, Butler could do it, but his odds are a hell of a lot worse than Edgar's were, IMO and Edgar didn't even approach it. 3,000 hit guys are made in their late 30s. Either they're guys like Craig Biggio that keep knocking out 170 hit seasons after their 35 birthdays or they're Edgar. In other words - it's just not a conversation worth having for another 7 years.

Look at it this way - Butler's 3 years ahead of David Ortiz, essentially. So even if you presume that those will be 3 good years, you're talking about adding another 550 or so hits to his total than Ortiz. David Ortiz has aged better than any bad body hitter I can remember and he hits in a perfect park for him - he's still not going to get to within 500 hits of 3,000.

I'd be shocked if Butler topped 2500, truth be told. But if he can get to 2400 by the time he's 35, he has a shot. That seems damn unlikely to me.

1. How long have we had Gordon? If the Cardinals had Gordon they wouldn't have signed Beltran before the 2012 season. He's a better hitter than Freese, but from what I remember he was an atrocious third baseman. I can't imagine that they wouldn't find a place to plug him in, even if it was like the way they used Pujols as a rookie: 1B, 3B, LF, RF.

2. Wainwright's last three full seasons:

5.3, 5.6, 4.0 (coming off TJ)

Shields' last three full seasons:

1.7, 4.5, 3.9


This season: WW: 3.0, JS: 1.8

Wainwright's xFIP is also better as well.

Wainwright also has one of the best 2-3 pitches in baseball that he can lean on in a desperate situation. Shields doesn't have that.

I don't view them in the same class at all.

3. No. Bad bodied DHs don't age well. It's just that simple.

Well why don't ya cry about it, saddle bags?

He is ****ing douche troll just ignore the idiot.

Look at the Reds' schedule so far, dumb ****.

That will even out with the start of your 2nd half schedule dummy. You cant make up these 4 games.