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Guys, this ain’t our first Palacios. We took a chance on ex-Buc Vicente Palacios in the struggling period of mid 90’s before we went all in on Big Mac. He gave us 2 years and almost 200 innings of subpar results after reappearing from the Mexican league. Then disappeared for almost another 5 years before resurfacing in organized baseball. Looking at his baseball reference pic makes me wonder if he fibbed a bit about his age as a lot of folks did in the 80’s when he was getting started.
Palacios did take a memorable turn in the rotation July 19th, (his 31st birthday) 1994 for our club. He 1 hit an Astros club featuring Biggio/Bagwell and friends to the tune of a shutout, besting Daryl Kile a night after Houston overcame an 11 run deficit to beat the Cards. I suspect they may have celebrated a bit too much.
Seemed like the Cards were always trying a project to turn a reliever into a starter around then. They did well with Bottenfield and managed to pass him off with Adam Kennedy to get Edmonds. No way that deal gets made these days with focus on strikeouts, Whip, FIP, and the alphabet stew. Anyone with a pulse could see Kent was doing it with smoke and mirrors. Todd Wellemeyer was another one that I just couldn’t understand why they were trying to turn into a starter. He always looked like he had run a marathon by the end of the 3rd
That was a sad era Mr P. I remember one year the ‘ace’ was Kent Mercker with about 10 wins.
Well Bling, this year our “ace” is Mikolas with a 4.75 ERA and 7 wins
Great. O’Neill pinch-hits for Palacios and strikes out. That’s all he ever does. That and be injured.
I wouldn’t mind if his time in St. Louis is coming to an end.
Taking a gander at the out-of-town scoreboard:
The Jasper Wildcats win over the Evansville Mater Dei Wildcats by the score of 35-21.
The Reds down the Mets 5-3 at Shea Stadium.
Arizona gets three runs in the bottom of the 1st and lead the Cubs 3-0 at the BOB in Arizona.
Miami storms back from a 6-4 deficit and wins over Atlanta 9-6 in Florida.
The Giants lead Colorado 1-0 in the middle of the 7th at Mile High Stadium.
The Yankees come back late and down the Pirates 7-5 at Forbes Field.
I agree, Rat. It’s time to move on. Mainly because his is injured 1/3 of the year every year. They’ll also save about $5 million, which hopefully they will use on pitching.
At least Mercker was dealt for Mike Matthews who gave us a couple decent seasons before being traded to Milwaukee. I love reading these guys transaction lines. It was Matthews and a guy named Chris Morris for former first rounder Jamey Wright, who was still only 27 despite stinking it up for the Rockies and Brew Crew since he was barely old enough to drink a brew. The minors stats for Morris were so intriguing! Age 21 at A level. Good batting average, almost a hundred walks, almost 120 stolen bases!! He never really did that poorly in minors until he was done at 25. Prob would have been a starter on our 80’s clubs but the 90’s was a much different era and 15th rd picks have to do way more. Anyway, back to Matthews…I seem to remember he got into LaRussa’s doghouse but I don’t remember why and that’s why he got traded. Anybody remember?
Lars wouldn’t play another game this series. No wonder this team has sucked this year. Literally stood there and took three straight strikes. Never moved a muscle. That’s trash. Sorry to be so upset when the season has long since been lost, but that is just unacceptable.
Anyway, back to Matthews…I seem to remember he got into LaRussa’s doghouse but I don’t remember why and that’s why he got traded. Anybody remember?
I remember how LaRussa could be, and I remember Mike Matthews blowing the save and taking the loss to give Arizona the series lead in the 2001 NLDS vs Arizona, which we went on to lose. The next season Matthews ended up being the PTBNL in some insignificant trade.
Darryl Kile was a LaRussa favorite and he exited with the lead. Then Matthews put some guys on and gave up a 3 run shot to a light hitter who had never before hit a homer off a lefty. (That was the Arizona squad with Randy Johnson and Kurt Schilling heading the rotation.)
Lars wouldn’t play another game this series.
He’s hitting .170 since coming back from the IL. Its been about a dozen games now. Time enough to get back his eye. It might be that he’s not right physically. If so, they might as well shut him down.
Bling, being healthy or or not, hitting eye or not, at least try to swing the bat at one pitch. He was given three straight hittable fast balls the last two right down the middle. At least freaking try. That’s lack of effort in my book. Unacceptable performance.
I didn’t watch, but I take your word for it. There is a lot not to like this year.
Any idea why Palacios came out in the 5th?
Palacios came out because they put in a left-handed pitcher. And the Cardinals don’t believe left-handed hitters can hit left-handed pitchers, so they put in O’Neil, who struck out.
In O’Neil’s next at bat, he faced a right-handed pitcher.
Palacios only has 19 PAs for his ML career v LHP but his split line is .429/.556/.643/1.199.
I looked at his 2023 season splits, majors and minors combined.
v rhp .249/.377/.422/.798 – 387 PAs
v lhp .278/.365/.343/.708 – 127 PAsI don’t know the game situation, but if you were needing a guy to get on base, there doesn’t seem any reason to take him out due to a lefty coming in. If you needed a homer, well, he’s been doing that too. If the last thing you needed was a guy to not even put it in play, then it was surely a bad move to go to an all or nothing type like O’Neill.
It was certainly an analytics driven move, based upon calculated probabilities and what not. No consideration or factoring in of intangibles like who is hot or momentum or a feel for the situation from the top step. That wouldn’t be consistent with the philosophy and we don;t have the personnel for it anyway.
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