Friday Follies

Some quick hits and a few links to my favorite Post Dispatch writers.

People comment to me all the time, “What’s wrong with Matt Holliday?”, or “Holliday sucks. That contract was a mistake!”, etc. Yes, he’s in a slump. And he’s up with runners in scoring position a lot, because well, frankly, because the pitchers would rather face him than Albert Pujols. Duh. Look, he’ll be fine. He’s a notorious slow starter, but he’s a constant. Every year, he ends up with a batting average over .290 and 90-100 RBIs. I assume he’ll get there again this year. My favorite Post Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz agrees . . .

Moving on. The Phillies series was a good series between two good teams. Yeah, the Cardinals lost 3 out of 4. Hopefully you are not panicking out there. I know I’m not. Beat up on the weak teams during the year and win your division, all the while figuring out how to get good enough to match up to the other NL powers once you reach the playoffs. Look, here’s how this series went.

Game 1 – Garcia pitched a gem and won the game. That’s a plus, come playoff time, knowing Garcia is not afraid of the big stage. He’s proven that by going head-to-head against three teams’ number one starters this year.

Game 2 – Wainwright against Hamels. This was supposed to be a pitcher’s duel and it was. In the playoffs, these kinds of games are coin flips. Whoever blinks last loses. We blinked in the 10th inning. Next time, maybe they’ll blink.

Game 3 – Penny vs Kendrick. Cards lost 4-0. This is the one that we should have won. This is the kind of game we’ll need to win, when we get to the playoffs. LaRussa knows that. Hopefully we’ll take better at bats next time we face him. Everyone else in the league has been teeing off against Kendrick, but he has our number (so far). Perhaps we’ll see him again.

Game 4. Lohse vs Halladay. We were supposed to lose this game. But remember, in the playoffs, it would be Carpenter vs Halladay instead. And then it would be another coin-flip game, trying to see which team could scrape out a run or two first. The Cardinals had a few chances against the Doc, but he shut them down when he needed to. That’s what good pitchers are supposed to do.

It is no crime to lose 3-of-4 to these guys in their home ballpark, especially when we didn’t have Carpenter pitching. The Cardinals will log these games in their memory banks, and they’ll be ready in October.

Other tidbits and links . . .
In case you didn’t hear, David Freese got a triple in yesterday’s game to extend his hitting streak to 10 games. Oops, no he didn’t. Read Joe Strauss’ comments from yesterday’s game and how the official scorer at Citizens Bank Park was bullied by the Phillies’ braintrust.

And, if you are reading this, you must like reading about the Cardinals online. Hopefully, you already know that Derrick Goold of the Post writes a 10-at-10 blog entry every weekday morning that the Cardinals have a game. It’s always full of enjoyable tidbits from the previous game and things to look ahead to in the next game.

Enjoy the games this weekend. Hopefully the Cardinals will take out their frustrations on the Pirates.