2023 StL Game #24: Tuesday, April 25 at Giants

They seem to be totally incapable of holding small leads without pissing them away and it’s starting to irritate the hell out of me!

Maybe there’s some legs to the changing of the guard at catcher. I’ve heard whispers of some not being happy.

“When you suffer like this it creates some perserverance and character. I’ll tell you right now, this will serve us well down the road. This will serve us extremely well when we get into September, I’ll tell you that.” Okay, you told me. Now show me something.

This will serve us extremely well when we get into September, I’ll tell you that.

It’s gotten past the “calling a player out” stage now. Got to pretend there’s a silver lining. On top of everything else, being a good actor is also a critical skill for a manager.

The quote made Jim Mora’s rant popped into my mind. Just substitute “September” in for “playoffs.”

“September, September? You kiddin’ me? I just hope we can win a game. Another game.”

These morning-after reads from 6,000 miles away are depressing

The morning reads from 10 miles away are just as bad.

I wouldn’t call a 5 and a third innings pitched, two runs allowed, a quality start, but close enough. If you don’t win these games, leading by two runs in the 9th, you are gonna be a cellar dweller. That’s because other teams aren’t gonna blow those leads.

So Hensley has blown three saves in April. There’s nothing wrong with blowing three saves in 20 chances. That is an 85% conversion rate. Not Cy Young, but easily good enough. But he has had only a handful of chances.

Hensley quit pitching at a top notch level around early to mid July last year. And of course this year he has been awful.

Well, we certainly blew that game. Wow! Not sure what our catcher was thinking calling for 4 sliders in a row, to a guy who can’t hit fastballs? I guess Hels, could have shook him off as well, but with this darn pitch clock its hard to keep getting new signs.
Probably would have been a really good time for a mound visit after the first run in the 9th..!
Oh well, move on; Woodford looked actually very good. slider was good, most pitches down getting ground ball, except for that ONE to Yaz.! But with a clean game of no errors, he allows 1 run on 5 hits, I’ll take that any day. Good to see Cabby back in form as well.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter how Woodford did or does. When Wainwright returns the money guys and the tout will stay and he will go. Anyone who has been following the script knows that.

1TD, I have to say that after watching that fiasco last night I am getting much closer to joining you on the fire Ollie bandwagon. Not that I think it will do much good but we are getting close to the point of no return here. Something needs to be done to jolt this team out of the doldrums. I don’t think I can take many more games like last night.

I still don’t think all of our problems are due to the manager but I am not sure what else can be done. Mo isn’t going to resign or be fired and he isn’t going to purge the roster. The Phillies were floundering last year with Girardi, made a change, and ended up going to the World Series. I doubt that would happen here but something needs to be done.

As I have stated before I haven’t been defending Marmol because I think he is a genius manager. It is because I am not confident the replacement will be much different and it really bothers me that the Cardinals are now churning through managers like losing organizations do. The Cardinals have always prided themselves on stability. We had three managers in 30 years with Herzog, Torre, and LaRussa. We are now on our third manager since 2011 and may be close to number four. That is almost George Steinbrenner level chaos.

Let’s look at our last three managers. I don’t think anyone in Cardinal Nation thought Matheny was a managerial genius. He did take us to a World Series but a lot of people think he inherited a very strong team that ended up getting weaker the longer he was here. Shildt then comes in and righted the ship a little bit. He won quite a few games and took us to the playoffs but never could get to the big one. Of the three rookie managers he was probably the best. He had come up through the Cardinal minor league system and seemed like a natural fit although was a bit of a sunshine pumper. His mysterious firing is still kind of baffling. Then comes Marmol, who was Shildt’s protege. He also inherited a pretty strong team, wins 93 games in year one, and now the wheels have completely fallen off. He hasn’t received much help from the front office in the pitching department but last night illustrated that our problems go deeper than pithing.

Sorry for the long rant. I am just frustrated. At some point the Cardinal brass needs to stop hiring yes men and hire someone with experience.

Lee, it gets down to how the batter who later scored reached base in the first place. On the Edman play in the second inning, the official scorer ruled it a single rather than an error. So that runner/run is considered earned.

Just want a add a little bit here, i.e., there’s another component to it being adjudged an earned run by the scorekeeper. Estrada singled, stole 2B, then advanced to home on the two errors. The scorekeeper essentially reconstructs the inning without the errors to determine if Estrada would’ve scored anyway to be earned. What followed was another single, ground out, and fly out, in the scorekeeper’s judgement, the run would’ve scored without the errors. Had Woodford struck out the next two immediate batters after the two errors, the run would’ve been unearned.

Of the three rookie managers he (Shildt) was probably the best. He had come up through the Cardinal minor league system and seemed like a natural fit although was a bit of a sunshine pumper. His mysterious firing is still kind of baffling.

My thoughts too. Shildt was far from perfect, but to be where we are now seems like an unforced error. All because one of the guys near or at the top, and who wears no clothes, has a fragile ego. It probably could’ve been kept in house if not for the ego. Non-yes men need not apply.

Yes, but if I recall, didn’t Mo say that when he got on the plane to fly back to St. Louis he didn’t know he would be making a managerial change? That would indicate that the outcome of the game wasn’t a factor.