St. Louis Sports Blog

Cy Young agrees with me. It's a shame his namesake award didn't go to a Cardinal. Hell, he even played for the Cardinals for awhile! If anything, I'll bet he's even MORE pissed than I am!

​Sigh. 

Carpenter, shortly after being shot by an opposing player. He went on to throw 6 2/3 shutout innings later that day.

​Chris Carpenter was named yesterday the National League Comeback Player of the Year by Major League Baseball. It shouldn't come as a shock to anyone, of course, considering Carpenter missed almost two full seasons after having Tommy John surgery in 2007, then returned this year as a Cy Young Award contender. 

​So maybe, just maybe, perhaps, it might be, maybe, that the St. Louis Cardinals are preparing to name one Mark 'Big Mac' McGwire as their next hitting instructor. Maybe. 

Well, it looks as if Tony La Russa will be returning to manage the St. Louis Cardinals once again in 2010. He hasn't made any sort of official announcement as of yet, but all signs point to La Russa coming back for his 15th season wearing the Birds on the Bat. 

Well, we all knew it was coming eventually. Just a matter of time, really. 

Ryan Franklin, seen here in a file photo, proves to be an outstanding interview subject.

​Ryan Franklin was on the ITD Morning After on 101.1 ESPN the other day, and I have to say it was of the more interesting interviews I can recall hearing an athlete give in quite some time. He talked about the blowup in Game 2 of the NLDS, Matt Holliday possibly returning to the Cardinals, and John Smoltz' opinion of the St. Louis area in general. 

The Cardinals' season may be over, but that doesn't mean the work of the Cardinal organisation is done. No, there's still work to be done; free agents to be resigned, arbitration offers to be formulated, fitness programs devised and enforced. 

​Remember those parodies of Green Day's "Holiday" that hit YouTube this summer following the Cardinals' acquisition of Matt Holliday? 

Somehow, it was perfect Rick Ankiel should be the one to make the last out. 

​So the question must eventually be asked, you know. I don't want to have to ask it, and I'm sure you probably don't want to have to try and answer, but the question will not just go away. So here goes. 

Okay, so it wasn't quite the start the Cardinals were hoping for. 

​Coming off the three-hour, 54-minute letdown last night in Los Angeles, there's nothing we want more than to look ahead to this afternoon's Game 2 start time of 5:07 p.m. and put Matt Holliday's plate failures and Chris Carpenter's perplexing inability to find the outside of the plate behind us.

To get your mind off all that -- if only for a few brief moments on this saturated Thursday afternoon -- here's what they're saying in other cities. Take comfort: that the nail-biting, cursing, nervous wreck of a human you've become in the past 24 hours or so is not all that uncommon. Hell, in New York, there's some babe who's dubbed herself "Crazy Yankee Chick."

For the past couple of weeks, I've been feeling really kind of rough. Not sick, necessarily, but just not all that well. Every few days, I would feel a little better, but then the next day it would be right back down. I had a hell of a time mustering the wherewithall to complete much of anything. No energy, kind of just icky, you know? I didn't think too much of it at the time; just the cost of doing business when you've got too many hours worth of work to get into the day.

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In just a moment we're going to hear from Craig Welling, a Denver blogger who snapped a photograph that was the source of much argument and consternation around the Interwebs last week.

urbanprankster.com

​Tonight, the Cardinals will begin their final series of the year. Well, final series of the regular season, anyway. Luckily, postseason baseball awaits for our boys in red this year, rather than the specter of another October spent rootrootrooting against the Cubbies. So am I sad to see the season end? Perhaps a bit wistful? 

The Cardinals have had many, many great hitting pitchers in their long and illustrious history. Bob Gibson hit 24 home runs in his career and posted a .751 OPS in 1970. Mark Mulder was a designated hitter during his college career at Michigan State, as was Dan Haren at Pepperdine. Jason Marquis is a former Silver Slugger award winner. Both players in the worst trade the Cardinals have ever made, Rick Wise for Steve Carlton, were very good hitters. So there is plenty of history in the annals of Cardinal baseball regarding pitchers who can handle the bat. 

Photo courtesy Craig Welling

​Ladies and gentlemen, it appears the Cardinals may have gotten screwed over in Sunday's game. 

​The decline of Brad Lidge's pitching prowess has been well documented. We all remember the defining moment of Lidge's 2005 campaign: his gopher ball to Albert Pujols with two on in the ninth and the Astros on the verge of their first-ever trip to the World Series. (Relive it here, but don't say we didn't warn you to mute the sound.)  The 'Stros, of course, bounced right back and eliminated the Cardinals two days later but proceeded to hand over the championship hardware to the Chicago White Sox.

Lidge's downhill slide continued into '06, but then he righted himself for a while.

This year, however, has been positively ulcer-inducing  -- 11 blown saves! -- a development that has driven some Philadelphia fans, who haven't proven themselves to be the most sane bunch, to start video-ing the closer's meltdowns and coupling them with their own play-by-play meltdowns:



Before St. Louis fans get too deep into the shit-talk, though, we'd all do well to remember the late-career implosions of two great closers, Jason Isringhausen and Lee Smith.

Despite efforts to screw up post-season play by the commissioner and his staff, Major League Baseball has something going for it than other professional and college-level leagues don't: When a team clinches its division and is headed for the post-season, it actually means something.

To wit, writer J. Carnage at Inside STL gives his take on what it means to clinch in the MLB, compared to the every other major and not-so-major league in America. It just means less in the NHL, NFL, NBA, WNBA, and college football and hoops than it does for baseball. Maybe so, but don't tell that to Blues fans this season, where a playoff berth is all that matters, no matter how inconsequential it is to the rest of the league.

About the NHL, Carnage writes:

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nyfbfoundation.org

​The minor league seasons are all over, with the notable exception of the Cardinals' Triple A club in Memphis, where the Redbirds are currently but a single victory away from winning the Pacific Coast League championship. As the farm system winds down for the winter, it's time for those of us interested in such things to begin putting together our various annual lists which will haunt us for all eternity, as our chosen prospects flame out and make us look clueless for our fandom. 

Sure, he hasn't actually pitched like a piñata this year, but it's just too good a nickname to stop now.

​Apparently, Joel Piñeiro really wants to stick around with the Cardinals a while longer. He has reportedly told his agent to get a deal done that will keep him here if at all possible. 

At this point, I honestly don't know who to beg, plead with, or pray to who might have some legitimate chance of ridding us of the curse of Todd Wellemeyer.

I tried praying to God after Welley's start in Pittsburgh on the 12th of May, when he gave up seven runs in 4.1, but God seemed uninterested in my baseball team, thus ensuring my lifelong atheism. 

God, who kept telling me he had more important things to worry about. Bah. Like what?

​Jesus was no better, kept telling me he helps those who help themselves. Sounds like he just wants me to do the work and him get the credit, if you ask me. The Holy Ghost was pretty cool, but had that whole Scooby Doo thing going on, and really wasn't as much help as I was hoping. 

Via InsideSTL

Click here for the rest of the list.

​The bloggers over at InsideSTL have little to talk about, now that the Cardinals are seemingly a lock for the playoffs, so who can blame them for taking to a little outside-the-lines commentary? Certainly not us.

1. Chris Carpenter is 11-0 since the beginning of July. In that time, he has held opponents to a batting line of .240/.286/.312, good for an OPS of .598. Basically, Chris Carpenter turns every major league hitter into a slightly more potent batter than this guy. 
2. Chris Carpenter is one of only two pitchers in the history of the St. Louis Cardinals to have multiple 10-game winning streaks. Bob Gibson is the other. Dizzy Dean didn't do it. John Tudor didn't do it. Bob Forsch didn't do it. Jesse Haines didn't do it. Even the great Silver King didn't do it. Just Carp and Hoot. 

   I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

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3. Yesterday, Carpenter threw the best game a Cardinal pitcher has tossed this season, with a Game Score of 93. Going by that, the only better game thrown in the major leagues this year was Jonathan Sanchez's no-hitter. In a year when Adam Wainwright has posted several truly remarkable performances and Joel Pineiro has thrown two shutouts of his own, Carpenter still somehow manages to be, by far, the most impressive pitcher in the rotation. 
4. Carpenter's winning percentage this year of .842 is 5th highest all-time in Cardinal history. He trails only Howie Krist in 1941 (1.000), Eddie Yuhas in 1952 (.857), and a tie at .846 between Elton Chamberlain's 1888 season and -- wait for it -- Mark Petkovsek in 1996. No, I didn't see that one coming, either. By the way, did you know Petkovsek was a first-round draft pick of the Texas Rangers back in 1987? 
5. Carp is the all-time franchise leader in winning percentage (.744), WHIP (1.068), ERA+ (147), and strikeout to walk ratio (4.120:1). He's 8th in hits per nine, 6th in walks per nine, and 3rd in strikeouts per nine. 
6. According to ESPN's Cy Young Predictor, Carpenter should be considered the favorite to bring home his second Cy Young Award. Oddly enough, he and Wainwright are 1-2, while Tim Lincecum, the pitcher most consider to be the best in baseball and the guy I personally think is the favorite, is actually in fourth place behind Dodgers closer Jonathan Broxton. Of course, the Cy Young Predictor isn't actually a formula to determine who should win the award, but only who history tells us is most likely to win the award. Carpenter is already one of only two Cardinal pitchers to ever win a Cy Young award; if he wins again this year he'll also be one of only two Cardinal pitchers to ever win two Cy Young awards. The other? You even have to ask? Bob Gibson. 

​​Ladies and Gentlemen, let me first tell you how much I respect the Gods of Baseball. I truly, truly do. They are fearsome, vengeful, old testament sorts who will reach down and quite mightily smite any foolish enough to spit in their faces. Disrespect them, friends, and your sorrow shall multiply. Rather, you must always fear the Gods of Baseball; revere them by showing proper deference to thine enemies even when presented with a seemingly insurmountable lead. Revere them by never speaking of perfect games or no-hitters or World Series matchups before the playoffs begin. Fear always the Gods of Baseball, gentle readers, and you just may find the path to October. 

-- I really, really hate Casey McGehee. I don't know how else to say it, so there it is. No real personal beef with the guy, mind you, but when you pick up nine RBIs in a single series against the Cardinals, you're just going to have to deal with me not liking you. It's really only fitting the Brewers got him from the Cubs' minor league system. Of course, nowadays, my disdain for the Brew Crew runs almost as deep as for the Cubbies, but it isn't quite there just yet. 

baseball-almanac.com

Face of a future LOOGY: Trever Miller early in his career with the Tigers.

​The Cardinals certainly are being proactive this season, aren't they? 

Ryan Franklin and the Cardinals are very close to an extension of his contract, one which would make his 2010 option year official and add on an additional season. Actually, it seems the two sides have been close on this for the better part of a week now, making me more than a little curious as to why it hasn't gotten done yet. I assume the only thing holding the deal up is the standard contract minutiae which always takes forever to reconcile, but I do find it a bit odd news of the deal started making the rounds so far ahead of the actual signing itself. 

​Well, okay, so maybe my title is overselling things a little bit. Maybe Smoltzy making his first start in the home white unis with the Birds on the Bat isn't the biggest story this team will produce this century. Still, it's a pretty momentous occasion, when a future Hall of Famer like John Smoltz puts on his uniform and takes the mound at home for his new team. He may not be the John Smoltz of old (then again, if his last start is any indication, he just may be), but that's still John F. Smoltz out there, man. Even I, in my impossibly cynical and sarcastic way, am plenty excited to see the game tonight. Oh, and thanks, Mark DeRosa! 

failblog.org