Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcellus
Shildt's only flaw at this point is running Carpenter out there over the younger guys, the biggest problem he faces the lack of talent he has to deal with in starting rotation (looking at you Wacha).
His press conferences annoy me when he is being all positive after almost being no hit about 3 times in a week but he is a positive guy.
BTW I guess they fired the right hitting coach.
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And regarding Wacha, since his return to the 'rotation' the Cardinals have gone 2-2 in his outings with the two losses being games where they scored 0 and 1 runs respectively. Those are likely losses with Flaherty on the mound. Hell, those are likely losses if Verlander's making those starts.
Shildt's running with a real talent disadvantage quite often and he's managing to milk .500 baseball out of Wacha starts by getting his ass out of there pretty quickly and letting Helsley do some lifting for him. It's a terrible position to put Shildt in but one he's handling very admirably.
As for Carpenter - I think Shildt is predisposed to giving Carpenter every chance he can, yes. But I also think he gets a LOT of pressure from on high to put Carpenter out there and try to justify that extension. If the Cardinals could just decline his option this off-season and move on, I think Carpenter would've been a bench bat weeks ago.
I don't think Shildt is completely without blame, but it's probably an even 50/50 split between him and the front office. And even at that, Edman appeared to have supplanted him as the starting 3b before Wong took the foul ball off the toe. I think going forward you'll see that alignment far more often than not.
Carpenter's season is winding to a close. His Cardinal career should be as well but $$$ dictates that they'll give him every chance to keep that 3b job (because he'll be gifted it to start the season) next year.