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A buddy of mine will be at this one. He and his wife live in Portland, OR these days and are making the trek up. He grew up across the street from me and he and I collected cards and played little league together. He became a big Cardinal fan and in the early ‘70s as teenagers his dad arranged for a “Cardinal week” for us, where he set up transportation and hotel accommodations and we got to see six games. Still one of the most memorable times I have ever had.
He ended up playing D1 college ball and a little low level minor league ball as well.
Kirby is pretty good, but I think we can scrape together 6 hits, maybe even 7 or 8. I will go over on the hits; whether they result in runs remains to be seen.
4:15 comes early. I only get a couple innings. If Pujols was still playing my boss would hate me as much as I hated myself. But I would be watching greatness and I knew it.
That’s about when I would get up in my office years, KCB. I would get up 4-4:15 and do about an hour workout at home – pushups, weights and treadmill. Then kick back for an hour or so with breakfast before getting ready for work.
These days I sleep in a little later as I am retired. However, that may change as I am in the market for a contract gig. I would really like to do something over the colder months, like October to around March or April. We will see if anything comes about.
Hope Libby is on his game tonight.
Yep Mike. I’m 68. But I get up stretch exercise make lunch andbreakfast read The Word for half hour. I’m only 5 minutes from work. Start at 6. I have a young boss I like and help keep out of trouble. He’s very good with people but needs my technical experience.
In regards to not wanting to miss seeing the great Pujols, it brings back memories from years before I retired of having to work during a day game in ’04 when the legendary slugger tatered up 3 times while going 5 for 5 at Wrigley in a come from behind Redbird victory over the Cubbies. I clearly recall hurrying home from a jobsite to rush indoors and turn on the game to see the Cardinals trailing by a large deficit in the middle innings. It was high summer in July and I was saturated with sweat and grit that was part of the type of work we were doing at one of the StL. Monsanto plants. I took a look at the large Cardinal deficit and was about to get ready for a shower when the great Pujols went on the attack. He single handedly proceeded to dismantle Wrigley Field along with the Cubs and lift the Cardinals to an 11-8 come from behind victory. When Albert got angry with the bat there was no question that you were witnessing one of the all time greats. Needless to say, I didn’t get a shower until he was done putting on a show of force at Wrigley.
I keep wondering if I ever get to see another Cardinal even close to #5. I would settle for #45. He might be here. ” Ya nefferknow “.
It is indeed knee soreness for Winn. Saggese slides to shortstop, José Fermín will bat ninth and play second base. #STLCards https://t.co/fbt5Ni4ZgS
— Katie Woo (@katiejwoo) September 10, 2025
I don’t think I will, KCB. He was a once in a generation position player, but I still think there’s a chance that I may get lucky and see another once in a generation type Cardinal pitcher like Gibson.
I don’t watch every second of every postgame press conference, so maybe someone can help me with this. Has the local press asked Oliver Marmol about how much and/or in which situations he’s using Kyle Leahy?
Leahy has been a valued setup guy for several months, right? He’s been a trusted high-leverage guy, even to the point of garnering a save on August 30th. But on Sept. 6th he entered the game with the Cardinals trailing by multiple runs. Then on Sept. 8th he was NOT used when Miles Mikolas left the game with two-on, none out, and the Cards nursing a 2-0 lead. (Graceffo inexplicably entered, got shelled, game lost.) Then on the 9th, Leahy enters another game with the Birds trailing by two runs, just like three days earlier. And to top it off the manager left him in for two innings and 30 pitches.
If you’re gonna burn the guy out, at least use him when it matters. Right? I mean, thanks to his lengthy Tuesday outing, now Leahy can’t be used at all on Wednesday if the Cards are protecting a small lead in the 6th or 7th inning. This is just bizarre.
My first thought was Marmol and Mo want to give Gracceffo high lev situations to see how he does. Runway / audition type innings.
That was my thought too. They aren’t playing for the playoffs at this point. Might as well put guys in situations and see how they respond and how well they learn. It was a good test for Graceffo. Obviously it didn’t go well. The question is whether that drives him to do better or it causes him to make excuses and blame something or someone else.
Yeah, who knows what these guys think. In both of these games I would have been okay leaving the starter out there longer. Mikolas was throwing pretty good on Monday, and while Libby was having some issues with command after the first couple of innings, he was only at 65 pitches. It’s not like these are must win games, so let Libby stretch out a little more.
Thanks for the responses, guys, and maybe I’m bad at math, but I don’t think that a team that’s 4 games out of a playoff spot with 3 weeks to go is in really a position for “auditions” at crucial moments of games. (Not that one or two appearances tells you anything about any pitcher or any hitter that you didn’t already know anyway.)
Granted, a manager should always, at every point of every season, be weighing the present & future of the club, and trying to strike a balance between the two. But to effectively throw away a game to garner theoretical information when a much better option is available, is something you do in April or May, not September. Especially not when you’re trying to eek into the postseason for the first time in three years.
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And anyway, none of this Gordon Graceffo theorizing addresses the matter of Kyle Leahy being used in back-to-back mopup roles over the past few days. For the past month or two, Kyle Leahy has been on pace for 80-85 innings, an almost unheardof total these days for a 1-2 inning MLB reliever. Each additional appearance is a therefore health risk, particularly for someone who has barely any life experience in a bullpen pitching role. Moreover, Leahy is someone who might have a significant MLB role over the next several seasons. Why take an injury chance on mopup innings? A real manager wouldn’t.
Are we so numb to mediocre baseball that we’ve forgotten what real managers do and don’t do?
That’s a good point about still having a slim chance at a post season berth, Bob. I guess I don’t think of this team as playoff caliber and figure we are playing out the string and the main focus now is to see what we have that might help next year and beyond.
And maybe that in itself is a reflection of the manager. He does not manage like good skippers that are looking for every opportunity to win. Thus we get the sense that this is audition time, and wins are not so important because that is how our field general operates.
Per Fangraphs, the Cardinals’ current odds of winning the final Wild Card is 0.7%. That is slimmer than slim. I prefer they act accordingly toward the future, going with the 99.3% view.
…but if you’re thinking about the future, Brian, then don’t you shut down Leahy now? Or rather, a couple weeks ago? Also, if they’d used Leahy (sub-3.00 ERA) instead of Graceffo (ERA over 5.00) on Monday, then there’s a pretty good chance the team is one game closer — that changes the odds.
Or to put it another way, good Keymaster. Can you imagine Whitey Herzog giving up on the division race if he trailed the cubs by 4 games with 18 left to play? Me neither. That’s not what good managers do, no matter what Fangraphs has to say about their chances.
I got chastised back in early July for saying that the Cardinals shouldn’t sell because I thought they had a chance at the playoffs. I was told that even if we somehow made the playoffs we would be exterminated immediately therefore it wasn’t worth the bother. Regardless the front office, not the manager mind you, decided that we indeed were going to sell which we did. I think their actions spoke rather loudly on what they thought of the remainder of this season.
So now we are blaming the manager for doing what the front office wants, which is to give the young guys runway? I agree that Herzog would manage differently or at least he would for about 10 minutes. That is about how long he would tolerate the front office telling him what to do.
The number of rookies or AAAA players on this current roster is astounding. It seems obvious to me that making the playoffs is not the priority for the organization right now. And this is because of the decisions of multiple people, not one person.
I’d been hoping for Leahy to be around the 86 IP Libby threw last season. I hope this is stretch him out for a shot at next seasons rotation.
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