That's my point.

Chase Utley and Hanley Ramirez can go at 80% and still be plus players.

If Skip Schumaker and Brendan Ryan aren't busting their ass on every play and in every AB, they're just minor leaguers.

They absolutely cannot believe their jobs are safe. Those two guys need to wake up every morning believing that Lopez and/or Greene can relegate them to bench players again.

This is on LaRussa. He's allowed two marginal major leaguers to feel comfortable and that's completely unacceptable.

Ugh. :shake:

And Ryan throws another one away.

Stop throwing like Dan Quisenberry.

He's been throwing like that for a long time and he was in the discussion for a gold glove. It's obvious that his hitting slump is effecting his defense now. That'll get you sent to the minors. He's got one trip down left. When Lopez comes back, sned him down.

On the other hand it was nice to see Halliday come through with a clutch hit for a change.

jesus h christ WTF happened to our offense?

I think they're trying to fit everyone into the same cubbyhole. You can't just give one set of instructions to all players and figure it will work out. Not everybody can take the ball and drive it opposite field like they are being asked to do. They've expanded their strike zone instead of waiting for their pitch. This team depends too much on home runs to score.

What the hell has happened to Ryan from last year. I get that he is pressing but seems to want to lead the team in unearned runs.

I do find this ripping on Holliday and particularly the comparisons to Duncan quite amusing.

Expanding their strike zones and not being more displined at the plate is not McGuires fault.

I think Ryan must be on Dusty Baker's payroll. And if he isn't, he should be. :mad:

Dusty Baker? You look in the rear view mirror lately? It's Cincy on our tails and we got a 3 game set with them starting tommorrow in Cincy.

Yes, I know.

Wonder if any team is interested in a hitter that is on pace for 185 hits and 40 doubles despite a slow start. Nah just pick up Chris Duncan. He is tall and white so he can do the same.

Exactly.

In fact, that's a Hal McRae teaching.

McRae was of the 'grip and rip' school. He was a guy that taught you to look for the first pitch you can hit and try to hit hard whereever it is pitched. I disagreed vehemently with his approach, but it's an undeniably accepted 'old school' method.

McGwire teaches hitters to take a strike, work the count and attempt to drive the ball back up the middle. His idea is that you make the pitcher come to you. This is the approach that I generally favor.

The problem is that it's just not going to work for Brendan Ryan. He's the most hyper ballplayer I've ever seen. His entire game is frenetic and wired. He's not going to be able to take a strike and still feel comfortable up there. McRae's approach worked far better for him than McGwire's would.

Remember -- Mark McGwire is a rookie hitting coach himself. He's going to have some bumps along the way here. The guys that are expanding their zones and getting themselves out, that's not on McGwire; it's precisely the opposite of what he teaches. However, Brendan Ryan's struggles do lay in large part on McGwires shoulders. I'm not blaming him, I'm simply saying that his 'core' teachings are not compatible with Ryan's personality. Sometimes players and coaches are just a poor fit for each other.

As time goes by, I think McGwire will adjust and adapt as a hitting coach and a guy like Ryan won't be such a difficult case for him, but right now McGwire is doing Ryan far more harm than good.

Told y'all....

The Reds are a very good ballclub.

Dusty Baker's still a damn moron, but that's a good team.

What a sick bunch of baseball players...they look lathargic and uninterested.
Kyle L. needed to pickup his team last night and he fell flat on his face.
Losh is making me feel sick every time he takes the mound, much like every time Ryan handles a bat

Wonder if their is something going on in the clubhouse we don't know about?

I hope it involves Brendan Ryan getting a blanket party.

Lohse is who he's always been: a fifth starter. You can't expect him to pick up the team. He's paid like someone who should, but he's not capable of doing it.

The team as a whole seems listless and lacking in confidence right now.

And thats not a Larrussa team at all. We can bitch about his micromanaging and players he loves way past when the rest of us figured out they were done but, his teams usually play hard and don't look like they have lately. Makes me think something is up in the locker room.

Greene starts for Ryan today.

Sadly Lohse is getting badly exposed with the mediocre stuff he has always had. Contract year with Duncan unfortunately lead to a decent contract with the team that usually spits that type out into FA.

Lohse doesn't have mediocre stuff, nor does he have a #5 starter ceiling.

Lohse has better stuff than Piniero had, without question. When Lohse is on, his movement and his arsenal actually make him quite formidable.

Lohse can be a solid #4 or a fringe #3 when he has his head on right. Unfortunately, he's feeling for his stuff and guiding it rather than throwing it. Once you start guiding your pitches, they'll flatten out and/or elevate.

He's in his own head right now. If I were Duncan, I'd send him out there for his next start with orders to lean heavily, I'm talking 90% of his pitches, on his 2-seamer.

Tell him to just pound the shit out of the lower half of the zone with that pitch. Throw it until you get a feel for it. If you get shelled, so what.

Since he can't spot his heat right now, he's relying on his breaking stuff and his breaking stuff isn't going well either. As a consequence, he's not improving anywhere. He's just a mess out there.

Get the fastball right and a lot of things will fall into place. Pitching at the major league level follows your fastball. I don't care if you have Randy Johnson's slider and Santana's changeup, it's the heat that sets up everything. Until he is able to control his fastball, the rest of it is immaterial.

I never said he was a #5. #4 or a well coached #3 in the NL is often mediocre stuff.

Lopez we need you,

I've never been high on Lohse. He has a career 4.70 ERA and a 4.52 FIP. He had a career year in '08. I don't think that performance is really repeatable.

It's nice to think that Lohse could consistently spot his fastball if he worked on it, but it's like saying that Tiger should be able to hit 80% of his fairways with his driver.

Thank God.

Solid inning eater with a few solid outings it what I have always seen him as being. Featuring a 90 mph fastball without a lot of movement is nothing special.

AND THE BENCHES HAVE EMPTIED

Carpenter telling off Lee for being pissed he didn't hit that pitch out

ROFL ROFL

Well, the Astros just got the last laugh with that altercation.

3 run shot from Pence makes it 4-0 Houston.

4-0? **** me running, we're going to get swept by these shitbags at home.

Somebody needs to start cracking skulls. This is pathetic.

Then he loses focus and leaves a fat pitch to hit up in the zone and game over. :mad:

Here's the good news:

The Cardinals have made me stick around past the 4th inning in any of these games. It's only costing me an hour or so of my life each time these assholes piss down their legs.

Mercifully I'm at work. Real shame I don't get to see us being made the bitch of one of the worst teams in baseball. Our pitchers are making Pence look like ****ing Joe DiMaggio.

They should have fought. Carp just plunk the next guy and rock and roll with a wimpy baseball fight. Might do something to wak this team the fu$% up.

Horrible AB by Yadi. Horrible.

Norris continues to rape us.

You know who I just thought about who hadn't crossed my mind since last October?

Brad Thompson, the puppy kicker. I didn't know he was part of the arsonists that make up the Royals pen.

Ludwick looked like a ****ing reerun during that AB.

This is bull****. I'm switching to the Royals game.

Coming into today, Norris had never given up an earned run against the Cards in 18 innings.

In the other 64 major league innings he's pitched, he's given up 50 ER for a tidy little ERA of 7.03.

It's not cute, it's not funny. It's pathetic horseshit.

That's like breaking up with Hitler so you can start dating Stalin. LMAO

ROFL

Even the Royals could put up a couple of runs on Bud Norris.

We need a good you tube hitler bunker scene created from this mess.

I'm sure Hamas could come up with a good one. :D

I'd try.

But I get the idea that it would mostly end up with Hitler saying **** a lot. Probably just a loop of it.

"Bud Norris? Really? Bud ****ing Norris? **** **** **** ****..." for the next 6 minutes. Sometimes it would be lower case ****s, sometimes upper case ****s and with varying forms of punctuation.

But when it gets right down to it, there's not a lot else to say.

****.

From Strauss chat yesterday:
Ryan is out of options and would have to be outrighted in order to go to Memphis. Chances of that are minimal


BTW, just got this offer in an email from mlb.com
http://cardinals.auction.mlb.com/cgi...unbr=120894261

The umpire warned both benches and then Norris hits Molina and Larussa doesn't even argue?

I sure am glad that LaRussa left Carp in to bat in the bottom of the sixth ****ing inning. It's not like we need to score any runs or anything. :shake:

Not that it would have mattered with Suckmaker hitting behind him.

FML

I'll have to look up how to do it.

Apparently we scored a run against Cy Norris. How about that. :whackit:

GOD ****!!

Gamecast is ****ed. What happened?

Scumaker grounded to first with runners on 2nd and 3rd and one out.

Berkman hits the bag and then whips it home, where he nails Yadi by a step, as the heart of our order watches from the ****ing on-deck circle.

Never mind. I see Suckmaker is picking up the slack for Ryan today. 4321

3-7 in our last 10

p f'n u


Only 1 run scored today.


The Cards look and act as if all they have to do is put the uniform on and jog out to the field. Its as if they think that they really are that good !!! Last week the STL. Post Dispatch wrote an article that the Cardinals were going to dominate the NL Central. I think that article was written right after Game one of the Phillies Series. Since then they've been lathargic and it appears that all they have to do is show up at the Stadium and the opponent will WILT in the presence of the Birds ont he Bat.

C'mon TLR, light a fire under thier butts. That should not have to be done, but something needs to be done. This is a F'N JOKE. Including PHAT ALBERT and his god dam ground balls and pop ups.

hold on there hoss.....dissing Pujols?:shake:

He's allowed his average to drop to .315 and he has never hit 50 in a season, he sucks, get rid of him now while we still can!

I own a # 5 authentic uniform - but I'm not going to let blind loyalty get in the way of calling him out after he's had a horrible week at the plate.

The intire lineup is suckage right now including # 5...the table setters
haven't done shit consistently.

I agree with this. I think Pujols is the best player in the game but I tell you he is playing like dog shit and hurting the team along with Holliday and the rest of the disappointments.

He isn't getting paid to be a .315 singles hitter. He is getting paid to drive in runs and score runs. Something that he isn't doing.

For the record -- when BRC said nobody would turn on Albert Pujols in a contract situation, this is what I meant.

Look -- Cardinals fans love Albert, but they love their Redbirds more.

Albert is currently criminally underpaid yet he's taking some arrows for his failure to produce to his previous levels.

Now, make him overpaid and put him in his decline years. In other words, he's about to make more money than anyone in the history of the game while also producing at a lesser clip than he's ever produced.

Albert has not spent a day of his major league career being overpaid. From the moment he made the show, he's has wildly outperformed his contract. So it's been easy for Cardinals fans to heap undying love on him because he's never been someone that did anything but help STL win ballgames.

Just wait, folks. When he's making $30 million/season and complaining about not getting help around him, while also not producing to his previous levels -- the city is not going to be interested in his bitching.

You're seeing only the tip of the iceberg right now.

The lineup around ALbert is not helping him do his job at all. SKIP has GOT to get on base MORE. Its not all on Skip, but it starts with him. He got that first inning single today and the boys behind him didn't do crap.

Skip stinks, Ryan stinks, Rasmus and Freese are playing well, everyone else is not hitting to their potential. I'm sure Mac has some kind of awesome coaching plan to straighten them out.

Sorry, but he's caught up in the suck same as everybody else lately. The best player in baseball shouldn't be playing the way he's been playing lately.

If these clowns are going to bust out of this funk, he needs to lead the way. That's his ****ing job.

ohhh I agree. He's in a slump thats for sure. But he's earned some slump time without us jumping all over him.

:cuss: you had better not be right on this.

We want our players to be loyal to us but jeezzz you let your average slip to .315 drop down to 8th place in the home run totals and you suck, you bum, get your act together? Is that what we want? This generations "Stan the Man" and we start trashing him for a slump? The man has hit at least .300/30 homers/100 RBI's every friggin season since he made the Big Show. How much more consistent you think a human being should be?

I would argue any athlete making more than $3 million is over paid.

You read that in the Daily Worker?

I agree to an extent. However, the whole Favre saga in Green Bay and how those fans reacted/divided would be very similiar to if the Cards let Pujols go.

Lets come out and put up a 10 spot on the reds tonight and take a sweep and all will be right with the world...hope I'm not asking for too much ????

That's an excellent analogy.

The respective cities have a pretty similar love affair with their teams. Each guy was just as important to the resurgance of their squad.

Yeah, I could see the mix being pretty similar with one MAJOR distinction. In GB, Favre can at least say that he was essentially pushed out the door. The Pack decided to move on without him, he decided he still wanted to play football. A lot of fans still hate him even though he didn't really walk away from them as much as he was sent packing.

If Albert leaves St. Louis (or even if he stays and takes so much money that the team struggles to compete), it will be exclusively about $$$$. Lots and lots of $$$$.

That will not go over well in St. Louis at all.

:mad: stop making sense....jeeezz this aint going to end well. :facepalm:

Unfortunately, you're right.

The economics of baseball absolutely preclude any kind of clean resolution here.

He's either going to make so much money that the Cards will struggle to compete (the players union seems hell-bent on ensuring this) or he'll walk and the Cardinals will likely be better off from a competition standpoint, but will lose a true icon.

I just hope they give me strong seasons this year and next because things will be very very different in 2012, no matter what happens.

We can't afford Yankees/Red Sox/Cubs type of payrolls but we can afford a top ten payroll. That should be good enough to keep your talent without screwing your team.

5 out of the top 106 picks in the draft this year depsite going to the playoffs last year.

25. Cardinals regular pick.<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
46. Compensation for DeRosa.<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
50. Compensation for Pineiro.<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
75. Cardinals 2nd round pick.<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
106. Cardinals 3rd round pick.<O:p</O:p

If you want a top 5 team on a top 10 payroll, you need bargains all over the lineup.

Carp -- older, declining; wouldn't be a bargain
Pujols -- see above
Holliday -- Paid above market for him; he'll never be a bargain

Now, WW is a screaming bargain. Molina is as well and Freese/Rasmus probably could be.

But if 1/4 of your payroll is dedicated to a guy that's not going to be a value signing, you're going to have a hard time keeping your results ahead of your payroll.

Sorry man, but the numbers are terrifying. This is a club that's going to be Albert/Holliday/WW, maybe Molina, and a roving band of minor leaguers. Carp - gone, Luddy - gone, Penny - gone, any established relievers - gone.

The only way is to draft well. Shelby should replace Carp etc.

Typical 1st inning, the 1st 2 runners get on. Pujols pops up, Holliday damn near hits into a double play then Freese the rookie at least hits the ball hard but flies out to deep center.

JFC.

Good God, what did McGwire do to Pujols? :shake: