Dipping a Toe into the Sea of Red

Woo Hoo! My first ever blog. I’ve been accused by many people over the years of being long winded, so this will be good therapy for me to use up a few of my weekly allotment of words in this space. Perhaps, I’ll get calluses on my fingers, and my co-workers will reap the benefits of shorter emails. If it carries over to my spoken words, then my family will see the benefit as well, and the house will be that much quieter in the evenings.

But what shall I write about? (Chuckle.) Anyone who knows me knows what is near and dear to my heart. I love my children, and I am married to my BFF and soul mate, but my family unfortunately comes in a distant second to my true love, the St. Louis Cardinals. So, I’ll mix in a little casual life-speak once in awhile, but I’ll spend most of my time waxing poetic over my favorite baseball team. Therefore, onto today’s blog!

Here we are, just settling into May and the Cardinals mantra of winning every series appears to be taking firm root in 2010. With today’s gem over the Reds by Chris Carpenter, they have won their seventh series out of eight tries. And they pitched well in the other series, last weekend in San Francisco.

The Cardinals have built a 4.5 game lead in the NL Central already, and have already reduced their magic number to clinch the division to 133! (Oh yes, I already went there!) The Flubs, the Brewskies, the Buccos, and the Redlegs have taken turns floundering around .500, while the Birds have put the pedal to the metal. This division will be over by July. For all intents and purposes, we could call it over as of now, but what the heck, let’s play a few more games first.

And how are they doing this? Pitching, pitching, and more pitching. With a little Albert and a Freese-ing hot rookie thrown in. Consider this, the Cardinals have built this early lead with these glaring offensive deficiencies . . .

Skippy Schumaker is only batting .217 as the lead off man. His .OBP (On base percentage for those of you just tagging along for the ride) is only .314. Combining walks and hits, you want your leadoff man to have an .OBP closer to .400. The Schu-man is lagging behind. He’s not getting on base enough for the big guys behind him, although this weekend against the Reds, he showed some signs of breaking out, with 3 hits and 2 walks.

Brendan Ryan couldn’t hit water right now if he fell out of a boat. (Average .192) He’s a mess. He’s using a funky crouch at the plate and he’s jumping at everything. He’s totally lost offensively. The McGwire touch has not helped Brando as of yet. A lot of players were singing the praises of the new hitting coach this spring, but so far the results are not there. Luddy and Colby-Jack have shown marked improvements over last year, but the rest of the lineup has not reaped the benefits of the steroid slugger. At least Ryan still knows how to use his glove!

Yadier Molina is only hitting .247, although he’s had a few big hits and RBIs mixed in along the way.

As a team, the Cardinals are only batting .236 with runners in scoring position (RISP). The team RISP leaders are Albert .375, Mr. Freese .500, and Ryan Ludwick .350. But everyone else is abysmal.


And, this team isn’t making contact as well as it has in the past. Perennially hard to strikeout guys Pujols and Molina are striking out more than usual. Albert is striking out once every 5.8 at bats this year. His career strikeout average is once every 8.9 at bats. The same applies to Yadi. This year he is whiffing once every 7.4 at bats, but his career number is once every 10.9 at bats. And this homer happy team in general is striking out 7.3 times per game. Last year, they averaged only 6.4 times per game. Mr. McGwire, you have some explaining to do!

But I complain too much. This team is fun to watch, and I expect their batting averages and contact rates to improve as the year goes on. Let’s look at the other side of this wonderful 2010 Cardinals coin before we go . . .

Adam Wainwright is 4-1 with an ERA of only 2.13 runs per nine innings.
Chris Carpenter, 4-0, 2.84
Brad Penny, 3-1, 1.56
Jaime Garcia 2-1 1.04
Kyle Lohse 0-1 5.28.

Sunday’s shutout lowered their team ERA to 2.56, the best in the major leagues. The starters are averaging 6.6 innings per game, which eases things for the bullpen. And that underrated St. Louis bullpen ERA is carrying their share of the load with 13 holds, 8 saves, and a bullpen ERA of 2.67. Franklin has been solid, Motte and Boggs have been better than expected, and Miller and Reyes have been solid from the left side.

There’s a lot to like about this team. We should have fun watching them late into October this year. And I plan to have a lot of fun writing about them.

Thanks for your time.