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Liberatore got one out, and gave up six base runners. That is a WHIP of 18.00. That is as bad as it gets.
But he is what you have got and has the physical make up to pitch in this league. Just got to run him out there and see if he becomes another Jerry Reuss or Jerry Koosman, or another Jerry Lewis – which is what Hicks looked like tonight. Excellent comedy!
This is no longer a case of a bad team. This has deteriorated to a genuine curse. There’s no other way to explain it.
We could go down to our local beer league softball complex and not see a play that bad. Well, maybe we would, but, an old fat guy making $15 an hour gets a pass on it.
This is no longer a case of a bad team. This has deteriorated to a genuine curse. There’s no other way to explain it.
The curse of the Moon Man.
No way does he get a pass, Bikemike…No one ever has a beer with him anymore and he’s barred from the local tavern. You have to draw the line somewhere.
I just watched that play two more times. The more I watch it, the more I suspect there may be a fat envelope hidden in Hick’s locker…
Just watched the post game presser. Please, please, and again please. Do this guy a favor and simply get rid of him. It’s too embarrassing. Let him go with some dignity.
The coaches need to go over a few Spring Training 101 concepts with Hicks tomorrow. Like 1td, I looked at the play again a few times. It’s just mesmerizing.
There were three things Hicks did wrong. One is the obvious errant toss that went 25 feet over Goldy’s head, but whatever, physical mistakes happen. The other two were mental mistakes. The first mental mistake was Hicks totally lost the runners while set for the final pitch. The guy on 2B left early and could’ve been a pickoff. Then, by the time Hicks fielded the ball, the lead runner was already at 3B.
Hicks continued to ignore the lead runner as he fielded the ball and turned toward 1B. That was the second mental mistake. Hicks should’ve at least looked him back since the DP was not in play at that point. The runner continued directly on to home plate. Had Hicks checked the runner, he probably could’ve have caught him too far off 3B and nailed him. Since he didn’t, the lead runner was going to score and tie the game even if Hicks had made an accurate throw to Goldy.
This is just a really bad team. Wow. It is creating ways to lose. SMDH
Amazing how much Yadi meant to this team.
Wish I had faith in the front office to do the right thing.Yeah Euro, I’ve noticed that pitchers all over the league are ignoring baserunners this season. I’m surprised someone doesn’t have 75 SB’s. It’s unreal. They don’t even look over.
.407 win pct equals 66-96. Unless someone has a reason to think we will play better than we have, we are looking at a 66 win season and finishing 30 games under .500.
If Mo trades off the MLB roster for prospect level guys at the deadline, then it is reasonable to think we will be even worse in the second half. A team that is supported like the Cardinals are could lose 100 games. I can’t even imagine that.
It looked to me like they began to pack it in weeks ago and I think a leadership change at that time may have made a difference, but it’s been too late since early June. I hope I’m wrong, but I expect them to finish the job from here on out. Losing 100 games is definitely in the realm of possibilities. Some of these guys would be better off with different organizations that would provide them an opportunity to excel and I think quite a few are hoping to be moving on to better things real soon.
93 losses in 1978 is the worst team in my lifetime! This team is going to easily surpass that! Worst Cardinal team ever! Surely heads will roll! If they don’t we may be headed the darkest time in our history!
I thought Hicks had things figured out. What a pathetic throw.
It’s effing embarrassing!
And if you want to blame a curse for things. At least called the Curse of Dan McLaughlin or Bagdad Dan or Ham head Dan. Lol coincidence I think not.
In another bit of strangeness, the official scorekeeper credited the Marlins hitter (Wendle) with a single and RBI on the last play. I guess the scorekeeper was also mesmerized by the throw!
This team just finds new ways to lose and sink even worse. Entire season is an awful, pitiful, pathetic, trash filled, sad circus full of million dollar clowns who suck.
“That is one you can’t pin on Ollie – it’s almost like something from the beyond.”
The meltdown by Hicks on the throw, well *that* specific failure can’t be blamed on the manager. But let’s look at the game as a whole. Starting with the starter.
Matt Liberatore was excellent in Spring Training, excellent across eight Triple-A starts (3.13 ERA), and then excellent again in his MLB season debut on May 17, twirling 5 shutout innings. (He needed 95 pitches to do so, which is a pretty important detail.)
Then Ollie Marmol did something that MLB managers very, very, very rarely do except in case of emergency. He brought back Liberatore on short rest to pitch an inning out of the bullpen. It took Matt 24 pitches to stagger through that inning, and he’s been beyond dreadful ever since, as his fastball has steadily eroded bit by bit.
He’s now permitted 24 earned runs in his last 27 innings, including that indefensible relief appearance. And take a look at the 4-seamer velocity from the Brooks Baseball website:
5/17 start 95.4 MPH
5/21 relief 96.0
5/26 start 95.2
6/6 94.1
6/12 93.8
6/18 93.5
6/25 93.9
7/1 93.1That’s 2.3 MPH lost in just six weeks. That’s a physical impairment.
And then tonight’s debacle. I think every bad Liberatore start since his pointless, moronic relief appearance can be attributed directly to the boy manager. And every bad game to come. And any trip to the DL this season. When a manager does something extremely unorthodox and it backfires this horrifically, he deserves every drop of available blame.Hicks’s BB/9 is 6.0. It has been similar to that for years. Why is he even here, much less closing? The answer is he lights up the radar gun. Never mind that he can’t pitch. Its like the org is playing an arcade game instead of baseball.
Some years, everything just goes against you. It’s hard to believe that a team with the kind of talent that the Cards have could play this badly, but the mental side of the game is a real thing.
On the plus side, a top 5 pick should be fun to have. Maybe this was Mo’s strategy to recoup value after the Cards lost the competitive balance pick??
That’s a great point about that relief appearance. Liberatore made. That one was certainly a head scratcher. I recall on the game thread saying something like “don’t understand why you bring Libby in relief here.”
When you watch this club a lot, it is obvious something is wrong. The whole is less than the sum of the parts. In football, especially high school and college, you can see that some teams are just well coached. Guy are disciplined, do not make a lot of penalties, and are in the right place more often than not. They can beat teams with more talent because the leadership is outstanding. Air Force has a lot of teams that way. They rely on stable coaching and discipline.
I think the that is the biggest problem with this 2023 Cardinal club – that and the pitching. “That” being the field leadership is woefully poor. I am not sure there is a high quality leader among them. Losing Maddux has hurt a lot more than we realized it would, and not having Molina’s presence has hurt as well.
Unfortunately office management has waited too long to salvage this season by changing the manager. It may not have salvaged it anyway, but this has gone far too long to sit by and not act. Mozeliak has helmed a terrific era of Cardinal baseball, but his legacy is being tarnished by the decision to put Marmol in charge of the field leadership, and now his seemingly red colored glasses approach to the atrocity we are seeing, saying Ollie has done an “amazing” job. “Amazing” is correct in one respect, it is amazing to see how far the might have fallen.
Lost in it all is the fact that if Hicks hadn’t walked the first guy, then the bad throw only would have tied it up.
Then Ollie Marmol did something that MLB managers very, very, very rarely do except in case of emergency. He brought back Liberatore on short rest to pitch an inning out of the bullpen.
Bob, you are assuming that Ollie made that decision all on his own. I would not assume that. I believe almost every decision is collectively made between front office and field staff and if there is too much push back from the field staff then they will get Shildted.
Some years, everything just goes against you. It’s hard to believe that a team with the kind of talent that the Cards have could play this badly, but the mental side of the game is a real thing.
Very true. The Mets and Padres both spent a gazillion dollars, hired veteran managers, and yet both teams are awful. Sometimes things just don’t click.
Herzog had some down years (’83, ’86, ’88, ’90) Torre has some very average teams in the early 90’s, and even Tony had three losing years here (’97, ’99’ ’07).
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