2023 StL Game #58: Friday, June 2 at Pirates

If Flaherty can give us just an okay start we should be able to win this one, with a well rested bullpen. Obviously, a quality start would be better, so we have a something left over for the remaining games of the series.

That’s good news. He probably shouldn’t have gone anywhere, but we had Motter and Mercado, so I guess there’s now room to shoehorn Walker in.

Well, there’s no use to hope for that, because they won’t forget. A lot of hitters have trouble making contact with a good one. What I hope, is that he sees enough good ones to not only attain the ability to hit them, but to also recognize when when he’s going to see one. I don’t think he was afforded near enough chances to counter-adjust once the opposition formulated an effective approach to get him out.

I haven’t heard anything about the Nootz. I guess they figured after the two days off he’d be okay, but anyone who’s ever suffered back spasms knows those can flare back up while putting together a sandwich.

What team is the Cardinal’s main foes? For decades it’s the Chicago Cubs. Fans want to see Cards Cubs. For decades they’ve scheduled six series per season Cards Cubs. But somehow they’ve cut Cards Cubs down to four series so we can see Cards play teams like Angels, Mariners, Cleveland etc. I could care less seeing these American L. teams. This has to hurt attendance and profits for the owners. Why do they do it? Are they idiots?

The Cards played 2 games over .500 for the entire month of May.

June has to be better. They really need to claw back to an overall .500 record by the end of the month.

Yeah JMack, I could care less about playing AL teams unless it’s in a WS. A Cardinals/Cubs series is always entertaining and fun, but the Redbirds have had several intense rivalries with quite a few other NL teams. My favorite was the Cardinals/Mets of the 80’s which was a genuine blood feud between two very good teams. More recently some others of note were Houston of the late 90’s into the 2000’s, Milwaukee in ’11 and certainly the Dusty Baker managed Reds teams for several years beginning in about ’09. At any rate, I’ll take NL action any day over Seattle, Cleveland or a home opener vs. an AL team from another country. It’s silly.

I’m with everybody else. I don’t like the interleague games. I wish we still had the NL and AL as pretty much their own leagues. I miss the Redbirds going out to the west coast twice during the year. As an example, nowadays when you are done at Dodger Stadium that’s it for the year, no more games there. I always enjoyed that 2nd west coast trip.

How about this:
15 games against divisional opponents: 60
102 games against the other ten teams. That’s ten (10) games against eight teams and 11 games against two teams for a total of 102.

Grand Total – 162 games. Problem solved.

I like interleague play. I like the DH in the NL. I like the pitch clock. I like they can’t throw the first a 100 times. I like the guy on second to start the 10th. Faster games are the best!

The pitch clock is about the stupidest, most ridiculous thing they have ever came up with. It’s even worse than that stupid runner on 2ndbase to start extra innings. I bet Casey Stengel would turn over in his grave if he could see the game nowadays.

Sometimes baseball is hard for me to watch. And all of those idiotic helmets and capes that they wear when somebody hits a homerun. Makes me want Drysdale, Marichal, Jenkins, and Gibson back so they could……well, you know what I mean.

r/Esteemed Rat

So much for the logjam of outfielders we heard all about this spring. They are all either hurt or have proven to be unplayable. Even so, I have the sense that the org is in no hurry to get Carlson (OPS+ 73) or O’Neill (OPS+ 71) back in action. As to the hit tool, Burleson seems favored over Yepez. Mercado can’t get in the lineup even with all the outfielders hurt.

So we’ve got two infielders and an infielder trying to morph into an outfielder out there tonight. Good grief.

How is Winn doing down at AA? Or AAA?

He’s in Memphis hitting .225 against righties. Minor league righties. What else do you need to know.