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1:10 p.m.
LHP Steven Matz (0-7, 5.02) vs. RHP Lucas Giolito (6-5, 3.50)
MLB Network // BSM // KMOX
(and Bally Sports South/Southwest)When will Ohtani make his 1st start for us?
And din-din for this one will be a couple of hamburgers on the grill, some Turkey Hill Vanilla Bean ice cream, a couple of little things of M&Ms, and then a 7×50 Palma Real cigar. Me and Whitey Herdog will be on the couch for this one.
r/Esteemed Rat
Man, that Matz line is ugly; 0-7 and a 5.02 ERA. He is becoming the starting pitcher equivalent of Brett Cecil.
Yeah, 0-7’s not too good. He’s taken 10 turns as a member of the rotation, but has appeared in a total of 18 games. The Cardinals are 2-16 in games in which he’s made an appearance.
Last game before the break and who would have thought…Reds in first place? DBacks in first place? Skippy’s team leading for the NL WC by 2.5 games? And how ’bout them O’s who are close to catching the Rays who came out of the gate at 13-0? But the biggest surprise may be the Redbirds at 37-52 and in last place for virtually the entire season…That’s baseball. The Braves are establishing themselves as the premier NL team, but I’m sticking with my preseason guess that the Astros repeat as WS Champions. Dodgers win the NLW. The Phillies make the post-season and I still think the Cubbies win more games this season than the Brewers.
There have been some good starts lately from starters who have been up and down. Maybe we can get one from a starter who has been nothing but down. It would be nice to close out the first half with a win.
Matz is a similar situation as DeJong and some others have been with the org riding out a bad contract. Its The Cardinal Way.
Last game before the break and who would have thought…Reds in first place?
I wonder if Pete has money on them to win the Division.
Maybe that was mean spirited but I could’t help it. It is hard to believe that only 3 teams in the NL have more wins than The Reds. I hope they can hold off the Crew and take the Division.
I keep hoping I’ll wake up to the news that Mo is stepping down to spend more time with his family…..
1. Lars Nootbaar (L) CF
2. Paul Goldschmidt (R) 1B
3. Nolan Arenado (R) DH
4. Willson Contreras (R) C
5. Alec Burleson (L) LF
6. Jordan Walker (R) RF
7. Nolan Gorman (L) 3B
8. Paul DeJong (R) SS
9. Jose Fermin (R) 2BA decent enough lineup with the personnel at hand. I would like to see what would happen if Walker were moved up to 2nd, with everyone below shifted down one, but whatever.
If Pete would have laid down a $100 wager back in March on the Reds to win the NLC, he’d have been in line to collect $6000 if they accomplished that feat. Pete’s a pretty astute high roller, so he probably was smart enough to have wagered $120 on the Cardinals to win the NLC instead. If that were the case, he’d be in line to collect $100…
Yeah, I wouldn’t mind a look at Walker in the 2 slot for a handful of games. It’s also a shame that Goldschmidt’s been effectively neutralized all season long from that position in the order.
I get the idea of Goldy second insofar as you want high OBPs ahead of the RBI guys. There was a shortage of high OBP guys earlier in the season. I think that OlliMo’s computer would conclude that moving Goldy up to second was the correct move. But of course, using Goldy as a high OBP guy ahead of the RBI guys assumes that you have effective RBI guys besides him to fill out the middle of the order. I don’t think the algo was advanced enough to get that far in the lineup construction thought process. Right now, with Edman out and Donny gimped up, the computer is coming up with the same answer.
Matz has extreme splits. He has an ERA of 2.81 as a reliver this year but as a starter it is 5.72. Obviously it would be nice if we could get more of the former instead of the latter. I would be with happy with 5IP and 2ER from him today. Can he do it?
I keep hoping I’ll wake up to the news that Mo is stepping down to spend more time with his family…..
Z: My hope is they put him on the IL due to brain discomfort.
I concur. Maybe Manfred could hire him to some fancy title with MLB like he did with Theo.
Not so much today but too often this year the lineup that Mo emailed down to the dugout seemed to be focused on the LH and RH splits instead of just putting RBI guys where they need to be. I know that if I was a pitcher I would not want to have to face Goldy and Arenado back to back unless it was a playoff game.
Matz has extreme splits. He has an ERA of 2.81 as a reliver this year but as a starter it is 5.72.
I have always been thinking that there is no way they move Matz to the pen permanently because they don’t pay $12.5M a year for a pen arm. But then I remember Andrew Miller. Mo paid him in that area. And before that was Bret Cecil at $7.5M. So it would not be unprecedented. Of course, it depends upon what happens between now and opening day 2024.
A book written years ago, might have even been in the 1930s, called “Percentage Baseball” dealt with optimizing the batting order. The author was a guy named Earnshaw Cook, and he advocated putting your best overall hitter first, next best second, etc. The reasoning was that you want your best hitters to get the most plate appearances over the course of the season.
Using the 1927 Yankees as an example, their top six usually went this way:
Combs (high average, low power guy – good speed)
Koenig (more of a move-the-runners over guy)
Ruth (nuf said)
Gehrig (nuf said)
Meusel (had some power, but was more of a high average, good EBH guy in ’27)
Lazzeri (good power and average, good speed)“Percentage Baseball” would go something like this;
Ruth
Gehrig
Lazzeri
Meusel
Combs
KoenigMost baseball men in those days, and throughout time to today, did not do that as they would have their big run producers hitting a lot with no one on base, since the worst hitters were in the 7-8-9 slots.
Putting Goldy at 2 is a little like that. I can see some rationale for getting him extra ABs in a DH lineup, but still I don’t think it is the best lineup for our club. We do not have strong run producers after Goldy and Arenado. No one else is likely to amass 100 RBIs on this club.
I think you put the best two non-Goldy OBP guys at 1 and 2, then go Goldy, Arendao, Gorman. Or you might put Walker at 5 as he gets better.
When things are going horrible, sometimes it’s best just to take the guessing game off the board and merely simplify matters:
Arenado
Burleson
Contreras
DeJong
Fermin
Goldy
Gorman
Nooty
WalkerHa! Just look for the extremely better looking(Pugs) one of the two, Bling. I could probably even manage a meaner game.
Matz does what he gets paid the big bucks for…….he sets them down in one pretty little chorus line 1-2-3, as we venture to the top of the 2nd in a scoreless ballgame.
Contreras walks to leadoff the Redbird 2nd. Burleson grounds out to 2nd where Andrus blew an opportunity for an easy DP by not throwing to 2nd base first. Walker flies out to deep right, with Contreras moving up 90 feet to take up residence at 3rd base and then Gorman strikes out to retire the side.
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