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7:10 p.m.
RHP Miles Mikolas (5-4, 2.62) vs. RH Corbin Burnes (4-4, 2.52)
BSM // FS1 // KMOX
Also BSSE and BSSW+I’d like to ask two things. First, what is Pujols doing hitting against right handed pitchers? And second, what is Pujols even doing on the team???
And folks, isn’t it obvious that our two young spark plugs are starting to hit the wall? Gorman’s batting average has dropped quite a bit the last several days. And Donovan just had a poor series in Boston. Is the adrenaline finally wearing off?
We need to avoid a sweep in this series. I’d gladly settle for a split.
r/Esteemed Rat
I’d like to ask two things. First, what is Pujols doing hitting against right handed pitchers? And second, what is Pujols even doing on the team???
As we have discussed many times Pujols was signed for nostalgia reasons and to generate fan interest on his and Yadi’s farewell tour. As for why he was in the lineup yesterday well he shouldn’t have been. I guess Marmol has succumbed to Mo’s nostalgia pressure.
Regardless, we are tied for first with a big 4 game series on tap. If our starters are on top of their game we should get at least a split if not 3 out of 4.
Rat, since Donovan has hit .387 in the last week, I am not concerned about the 3 games in Boston. If he goes cold for the next 2 weeks, I’ll get a little concerned.
Since I strongly predicted winning 2-3 in Boston, I shall refrain from prognosticating our upcoming games in Milwaukee. And if I seem strangely silent this week, it’s because I’ll be attending all of the games at Milwaukee County Stadium (that’s for you, Rat) this week.
I couldn’t agree more with Rat regarding Pujols, especially on the road…. He should never start against a RHP period.
I just wish these Cardinal announcers would give the Pujols gushing a rest. Enough is enough. OK OK, he was a great player. Now he isn’t. He deserves accolades for a terrific career. Now he’s a .200 hitter. So must these microphone jockeys go on and on and on about him every game? I can accept that the organization wants to milk the guy’s reputation for all it’s worth, but frankly it’s unclear at this point just how much that worth is. And I guess while I’m in complaining mode – can the resident motormouths stop spending practically all their air time trying to guess what the next pitch is going to be? There’s plenty of other interesting stuff to talk about. For example, what is Pujols planning for din-din? Ha Ha Ha!
Hochman: First place on line as Cardinals-Brewers series puts premium on pitching https://t.co/75zNHYg3PN
— STLToday Sports News (@STL_SportsNews) June 20, 2022
Pugs? Will you be sitting down there next to Front Row Amy? Try and concentrate on the game if you do. But take some good pictures for the rest of us.
Din-din today will once again be beef burgundy, potatoes, Mt. Dew, and a piece of strawberry pie from the Amish restaurant. After lunch need to do some yard work and jog just a little. A little.
Then later tonight me and Whitey Herdog will be on the couch for the Cards/Brewers titanic struggle. Then after that we’ll finish off the evening by taking in the DBacks/Padres affair in San Diego. The Padres will be without Manny Machado who hurt his ankle yesterday.
r/Esteemed Rat
Front Row Amy is like so yesterday for me, Rat. When the wifey is not at the game with me, there’s this new pretty little filly I chat with who has season tickets with her son, sitting right in back of me. She’s as pretty as a peach and laughs at literally anything that I say. Talk about a win-win situation. Last month I tried talking the wifey into taking her 3 sisters and mother for the week of June 20th to Minneapolis for a whirlwind shopping excursion, but her mother has a conflict during that time period and cannot go. My lovely wife will be attending tonight’s and Thursday afternoon’s games with me. My buddy Henry on Tuesday and Wednesday. This series has “split” written all over it. We’ll take 3-4 if Donovan and Gorman really step up to the plate with productive performances.
Need to stack that lineup full of lefties for this whole series.. Callup Burleson and Nootbar, activate Dickerson.
Edman, Donovan, Carlson, Gorman, Nootbar, Burleson, Dickerson, Goldy, Arenado, and Mikolas bat from the left side. For this whole series nothing but Leftys.Ks, Goldy and Arenado bat from the right side… Unless you want them to be a switch hitter for 1 series.
“I’d like to ask two things. First, what is Pujols doing hitting against right-handed pitchers? And second, what is Pujols even doing on the team???”
Albert Pujols has been a below-average hitter (or worse) against righties every single year since the Obama administration ended. And last year he was absolutely terrible against them, with a batting average of .180 and an OPS of exactly .500. (For context, Adam Wainwright’s career batting OPS is .511.) So the current Cardinal manager should obviously have taken the approach that the 42-year-old Pujols would only rarely get AB’s against righties this year — in harmless low-leverage situations, and also once in a while just to stay sharp for his opportunities against lefties.
(Because last year, and this year, Albert has continued to hit like a Hall Of Famer against southpaws! Last year it was a stellar .939 OPS and this year it’s even better at .951. And THAT’S why he is still on the team. Signing him was smart! Only the usage has been dumb.)
The trouble is, instead of a manager the Cards chose to employ a boyager. And our little sapling has indefensibly given Albert Pujols twice as many plate appearances this year against righties as lefties — which has humiliated an all-time great, and more importantly made the team worse. Like yesterday, when Gorman or Yepez could have DH’d versus the BoSox righty, but Pujols started and fanned three times.
Starting Pujols against a righty is kind of like, say, using Packy Naughton as a starting MLB pitcher. It doesn’t guarantee you’ll lose, but based on all available information it unquestionably reduces your chances for victory. And no manager is stupid enough to do that when he has convenient alternatives. Right?
A smart front office would have never created this situation in the first place. Instead they had to go with the “feel good story”. Albert is an all time great and I appreciate what he did here 10-20 years ago but he should have never been placed on this roster.
When Yepez sits vs a RHP, and AP starts, it’s a travesty. Yepez is a 145 ops+ vs righties. Our only player better this season is Goldy. Pujols is a 46, bottom of the barrel.
We know Yepez wasn’t hurt because he had a pinch hit HR. As horrible as we’ve been pitching, we can not afford to give away outs at the expense of our second best bat vs righties.
O’Neill on the IL. Hamstring. Nootbaar joining team tonight. #stlcards
— Derrick Goold (@dgoold) June 20, 2022
1. Tommy Edman (S) SS
2. Brendan Donovan (L) LF
3. Paul Goldschmidt (R) 1B
4. Nolan Arenado (R) 3B
5. Nolan Gorman (L) 2B
6. Juan Yepez (R) DH
7. Dylan Carlson (S) RF
8. Harrison Bader (R) CF
9. Andrew Knizner (R) CThat lineup is almost enough to make you think the boy-ager is competent. Now if only he hadn’t wasted Genesis Cabrera yesterday. (Can’t use Cabrera today. He’s very, very good on any amount of rest — except on no rest at all, then he’s horrid.)
I’ll predict a nail-biting 3-2 Redbird win this evening. As long as Genesis doesn’t pitch.
I find it hard to believe that Cabrera, or any big league reliever, is wore out after throwing a grand total of 26 pitches in 3-4 days.
Surely Cabrera would be good for an inning tonight, or three batters.
Or you could look at his actual results when pitching on zero days rest and realize over those 26 games “horrid” is an apt description.
No reason to guess, we count everything in baseball.
Sorry to rain the parade, but here goes. First, we never seem to do much against Burnes so I see this one going to the home club. Plus I am a little concerned on Mikolas coming off the high pitch count game of his near no-no.
Also, I like Pujols on the club, but he needs to be used appropriately. This reminds me of how it was for my dad, tying in to yesterday, when the Cardinals brought Red Schoendienst back to team with the veteran Musial.
Pretty big series. One of these clubs likely wins the Central and punches the automatic ticket to post season. This series will be a good building block for whichever club can win 3 games. A split and it’s like, “We’ll get ‘em next time.” A sweep and one team is pretty well demoralized for the time being.
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