I called it. We are going to the playoffs again, this year. Bookmark it. Rub it in my face later this season.

On track for 98 wins. :D

These guys really do love the home run

Isn’t that true in all of baseball?

**** the Brewers. Nice sweep!

They are hitting 1.5 dingers a game. Put in perspective, the 1982 WS Champion team hit a home run at a .4 rate per game.

Sweep of the Brewers. Early lead of the NL Central. 15-9. Overall, when they are not playing in that bandbox in Milwaukee, they aren’t playing half bad.

The rotation has the third worst WAR in the league to this point. It's a major concern. With that said, the offense has taken it up two levels with Ozuna and DeJong producing well, and the steady upward creep of Goldschmidt's production.

That Martinez is only going to be brought back as a reliever speaks poorly to his durability, maturity, and/or both. If they can't trust him to not party like an animal, it makes that extension look shitty.

I think Flaherty and Mikolas will be fine. Beyond that I’m not sure what we can count on.

From Bernie’s column on the Athletic:

When the Cardinals beat Milwaukee on Wednesday, it was Shildt’s 93rd game as their manager.

Coincidentally, Shildt took over for Matheny 93 games into the 2018 season.

In Matheny’s 93 games last season, the Cardinals went 47-46 for a .505 winning percentage.

In Shildt’s first 93 games after replacing Matheny, the Cardinals went 56-37 for a winning percentage of .602.

Sure, Shildt has Goldschmidt, who was acquired last offseason. Matheny didn’t have Goldschmidt. Doesn’t that matter?

Well, yes and no. Goldschmidt would help any manager. But Shildt didn’t have Goldy last summer when he led the Cardinals to a 41-28 record after Matheny’s ouster.

Bottom line: No National League team has won more regular-season games than the Cardinals since Shildt moved into the manager’s office July 15.

Good grief Matheny was shit.

They shouldn't have extended Mikolas

doesnt look like the same guy from last year at all.

12-1 pisspounding at home by the ****ing Reds.

Glad I was watching the draft.

https://media0.giphy.com/media/e4Jyxh9zQjgnC/giphy.gif

Reyes fractured his pinky punching a wall in Memphis

Really? WTF? Such talent wasted. :(

Well at least it was his left hand

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Alex Reyes punched a wall after his last start and fractured his left pinky. He&#39;ll relocate to extended spring training to continue throwing, but will be out of active competition for about three weeks. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/stlcards?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#stlcards</a></p>&mdash; Jenifer Langosch (@LangoschMLB) <a href="https://twitter.com/LangoschMLB/status/1122529112747388928?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 28, 2019</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Miller, Martinez, Wacha, Reyes

All of them billed as studs, all of them disappointments.

This FO cannot evaluate its own players at all.

I did the same thing once when I was young and stupid and pissed.

The good news is it's the kind of thing you only do once.

Martinez and Reyes both physically have #1 starter skills. Where both are failing is mentally. Both need to grow the **** up. Your not teenagers anymore. Be an adult for crissakes.

The minors are filled with guys that can throw 95 plus without any idea where it's going, and any idiot can piss away their talent.

I'm so tired of the hype machine surrounding these assholes. Miller was a jackass coming through the system too, and Wacha never had more than two pitches.

Until further notice, I don't believe in any prospect this system produces: whether it's a Taveras or Gorman.

I don't think you can say Reyes is failing mentally. He's blown out his arm twice now. Since coming back after the 2nd blow out he's looked more like Tyler Chatwood than a top 10 prospect. He's failing physically.

not sure where you are getting your information but the issue last year was not his arm. Right lat issue. That’s on the side of the body. AND he felt uncomfortable and a little pain in that area after a start. He didn’t tell anyone. And his next start, tears that tendon. That’s an immaturity issue. He tells someone he gets a little rest and doesnt miss the whole season.

I haven't followed his injury and was still working under the assumption that his injury was shoulder related. However, the lat still plays an important roll in throwing a baseball.

https://www.mlb.com/news/lat-injurie...all-c230442514

Pitching prospects are a crapshoot...and even more so in today's game. You don’t see guys last long as studs...it’s more rare than position players.

Miller was fools gold from the start compared to our other prospects and it has proven true after he left us.

The talent in the game has accelerated greatly in the past decade. The arms we have now on those 2004/2005 teams would have blown away teams in the postseason. Wacha isn’t worse than he was in 2013, it just isn’t novel anymore. Look at the daunted Mets staff of 2015.

Well, they're still mostly winning, though. The 9th got a little hairy today, but they held on.

Both Fowler and Ozuna has overcome a beginning slump and both are on a roll. So weird typing that with Fowler's name. He currently leads the team in on base percentage.

I remember when my Pirates were in first place.

Fun times.

You're a ****ing reerun.

2nd best record in the NL. 3rd best in all of MLB. And they haven’t even played their best baseball yet.

I would say it is pretty close to their best, at least overall. Starting pitching has under performed expectations, but the offense is humming along better than predicted. Both Fowler and Ozuna are performing way above last year with Ozuna less of a surprise. Wong and DeJong have both surpassed their norms. Carpenter is really the only one that is below his norm.

Gant has been nails in the bullpen and Hicks has been more consistent, if still scary at times.

We have some areas that we can most likely improve, however there are areas that we could see regression as well.

All in all a pretty good place to be.

besides Carp, yes this is the good version of this offense. I mainly thinking the starting pitching has been sub par and was expected to be a strength. That the bullpen has over performed from last year Gant etc but pieces like Miller still **** things up.

I agree that’s it’s a good place to be. No one in here anyway, thought we’d have the 3rd best record in baseball at this point.

Wacha ****ing sucks

He was all over the place. Airmailing pitches then skipping them in the dirt.

This team is teetering between really good and a ****ing meltdown.

Yeah, enjoy this while it lasts because we will see the latter by the end of the season.

Starting pitching is the only real concern right now. Which is a big damn concern.

But I'll be damned if they don't play like a "team" right now and don't do stupid shit to beat themselves. Haven't seen this since around 2013.

And good grief the FSMW makeup and lighting crew need shit canned. Dan and Thompson looked like ****ing zombies doing that recap.

we got tonight, who needs tomorrow? why don’t we stay?
/Bob Segar

Guess what NL team has the fewest fewest strikeouts? It’s still a small sample size, but the shift in approach post Mabry has been productive.

Yeah, I read an article on the Athletic that broke it down using stats. It was an impressive turnaround. Maybe because I'm a novice using these deep in the weeds stats but, it was an improvement is every way possible. And not just a couple of players but all the lineup.


And another article or maybe the same one..:hmmm: base running. Complete turnaround. From being shit during the Matheny era to near the top of MLB.

OMG the end of the Matheny era was ugly. From The Athletic

In the waning days of Matheny’s employment, the Cardinals were routinely shoved around at Busch. His final six home games were losses, with the Cardinals getting outscored 44-14.

With restless fans booing a lethargic, careless, mistake-prone team getting bullied by the last-place Reds, chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. and president of baseball operations John Mozeliak reached the boiling point.

After the Cardinals got humiliated by the Reds in two consecutive losses — 9-1, then 8-2 — Matheny was let go and replaced by bench coach Mike Shildt.

Insight coming? The games were just last year.

My worry right now is that I think the offense will cool somewhat and the SP may absolutely crash. There are some real alarming numbers under the hood here.

The Cardinals did some stuff shortly after LaRussa where they followed a year with unnaturally good string luck on offense with a year of unsustaintably high strand rates with their pitching staff.

The offense looks to have some staying power but the pitching isn't gonna keep stranding 80% of their runners, not when they struggle to generate strikeouts. Hudson, Wacha and Wainwright are borderline MLB starters right now based on their stuff, IMO. Mikolas has better stuff than his results but he just makes too many bad pitches; he's a poor man's Syndergaard right now in that he's just constantly making a bad pitch at a bad time.

The starting pitching to this point has been bad so many folks assume it's gonna improve. Folks - there's a decent chance the results get WORSE. There's a ton not to like about this starting staff.

Personally I think they need to work a lot harder on un-****ing Carlos Martinez and getting his ass in the rotation. They really need any version of the 2015-2017 Carlose Martinez in there.

****in dj comes in here and pisses in the corn flakes.
Sec

I'll do that.

But I still like Mikolas. His velocity is down about a half tick (and velocity has stablized by this point, as a general rule) so that's probably the new norm, but he can pitch well at that velocity anyway.

His problem is that his bad pitches are just too damn bad. Now just a little more luck in that regard will help (folks eventually start missing even the bad pitches; Dotel pitched for 2 years at the back of his career throwing pitches too shitty to hit), but he also needs to do a better job of keeping his head in the game and not just firing cripple pitches.

Garrett Stephenson was a !@#$ing pro at that sort of thing. You don't want to be a rich man's Garrett Stephenson.

Flaherty's a goddamn stud, so no worries there. And occasionally Wacha will make a pitch where I just kinda drop my jaw. That amazing change will show up 3-4 times/game (or roughly 1/3 as often as he throws it). He threw some hellacious 2-seamer thing his last outing that just massacred poor Soto. But Wacha's just so friggen inconsistent that I'll never trust him.

And I don't understand what Austin Gomber needs to do to get a shot up here. Yes, he's lefthanded. No, he doesn't throw 98. That doesn't mean he's a LOOGY. That guy's arsenal is a LHSP through and through and every time you let him do that in AAA he does it well. Can you please give him a legitimate shot to stick up here - he can do the job.

He’s right though. This is probably the best the offense can perform, and that probably won’t last all season. The pitching has been meh and other than Mikolas they are getting the results they should be.

Agreed on Martinez, we need him as a starter. It would also help if someone finds the Alex Reyes voodoo doll and destroys it.

They let Gomber’s spring dictate too much and they overvalued Hudson’s spring. Gomber has pitched pretty well at AAA so far, he has an excellent WHIP and still striking out a batter an inning. He probably get’s the start instead of Ponce if he hadn’t pitched the day before, at least I would hope so. He should be the first call up once Waino hits the wall, and he unfortunately I think he will. Wacha I can’t figure out, he looks hurt at times throwing a maxed out 91 mph fastball and the next batter he he throws a free and easy 95. His off speed stuff has been inconsistent as well.

Mikolas I think will be fine, his stuff is still good. He should eat more innings for us too as he he gets on track.

Anyone we can trade for this summer? Bumgarner?

THIS!

no one in here thinks we are the 3rd best team in baseball regardless of our current record. I still think we make the playoffs but as a WC. Then it’s a crapshoot. And the odds are not on our side. But.......I’d rather watch the team play hard, battle back, run the bases, and play some acceptable defense and then get our asses handed to us in the playoffs than watch whatever the **** that Matheny coached team was doing.

Both will be in the rotation before the All-Star break. I have no confidence in Waino to maintain this level of consistency and Wacha will get hurt somehow, someway.

Oh c’mon you don’t think he can duplicate at least one bases loaded “kick save” a game? :)

Ride him as long as you can I suppose.

oh yeah, they are both acceptable now. But, we and every person who follows the Cardinals know the breakdowns are coming from these guys. Looks like their replacements can do just as good and maybe better than them. I guess that’s a good thing.

Sure glad we extended Carpenter for two years BEYOND the option year we already had for next year, pissing away any leverage we had. :grr:

Dude is a mess and won't ever be consistent. I have been too hard on him at times but every time I think he is OK, he goes on a 4-28 tear like right now.

31 strikeouts, 19 walks and hitting .219 batting ****ing leadoff.

I’m not so sure they’re not the best team in the Central, honestly. Just pointing out they could be playing their best ball right now.

We had a long run of knowing we were the best team in the division and would not do anything to beat ourselves.

We may be inching back that direction.

Chalk up another W. :thumb:

When you strike out 8/9 times it’s time to take a day off. Didn’t they move him down to the 5th spot last year and then he took off on a hot streak?

When Miller comes in with a 1 run lead in the 9th and you still win, things are going your way.

Dude is a mental mess. Alway will be.

It's just nice to be happy about wins again.

I have no idea how we made it through the Matheny era. It has to be similar to hate-****ing an ex or something, right?

As for Waino - curve wasn't quite vintage tonight but it wasn't far removed. Looked good tonight. But it's just gonna be tough for him to keep tricking guys by pitching backwards.

Hey, I’m the resident homer. That’s my job.
I like the way we are playing fundamental baseball. Been since Larussa we have seen the baseball that we were known to play for decades.
Matheny made it feel like it’s been decades since we played good baseball. Good to finally feel like we are past that era.

Best record in the NL- I'll take it!

He threw a lot of two seamers over the heart of the plate. I'm just glad they missed them.

That's why I say he was tricking guys. He did a nice job of going with fastballs in breaking ball counts and breaking balls in fastball counts. Even a sub-standard pitcher doesn't need much of a timing advantage to draw enough weak contact to survive for 6 innings. They were missing mediocre 2-seamers because his pitch sequencing was unconventional.

He'll get away with that for a few weeks. But he can't live on that forever. He'll either need to sharpen up more (seems a big ask at his age) or they'll start to strafe him once they decipher his 'new' pattern of pitching backwards.

Maybe he can reinvent ala Greinke. My biggest worry is that he pitches just well enough that they justify him for a postseason start when that kind of stuff rarely plays well in big stakes games.

Best in MLB you mean? :D

My homerism is finally correct. ROFL

Well, they'd better keep it up. Goddamn Cubs just keep winning as well. Up 9-0 against the useless ass Mariners in the 6th. :grr:

Good night. Mikolas pitched well, and they beat Scherzer.

Gotta enjoy these streaks.

I'm starting to really enjoy baseball again. :thumb:

Matheny about sucked the fun out of it for me.

We've got the Cubs this weekend.

Need to make a statement. %(/

hopefully Carp gets the day off tomorrow. This weekend would be a good one to start that eventual hot streak.

Not exactly our best matchups at Wrigley

Flaherty vs. Hendricks
Wacha vs. Darvish
Waino vs. Quintana

Matt Holliday has been reincarnated as Hunter Dozier.

They've got Strausberg to beat today. Hopefuly Carp doesn't see the field. Fowler was hot before they sat him. I'm sure that's over now

Do we have the Cubs at home or away? I want two of three if at home and at least win one if away.

The series this weekend is in Chicago, I think.