St. Louis 2026 Game #14 thread – Saturday, April 11 vs. Boston Red Sox

[ZTR]

Surely that has to be it for Svanson?

[blingboy]

Folks were saying the same about May up until yesterday.

[858booyah]

I don’t think it would’ve mattered with the way our offense was MIA. Our best chance at multiple runs was in the first inning. Oh and another 6 hit or under performance. That’s like 7 on the year. We’ll have some growing pains with this offense this year.

But man Svanson needs a bus ride to Memphis. Who gets called up? Gulp! Fernandez again or something new blood on the 40?

[1toughdominican]

The little general could have walked out there and got him when it was still within reach at 3-1 with the bases jammed up and 1 out. He neglected to do so and allowed Svanson to get hammered for 5 consecutive base hits to place the baseball game entirely out of reach and into the fire at 7-1. THEN…the little whiz-kid strolls out there to take the baseball from his hand. Rebuild, reset, call it anything you like. What I’m driving at is, you lace ’em up and walk out on to the field of play to WIN the baseball game. Call me crazy, but that’s the reason you compete. Anything less is shameful. It’s what we once called packing it in…

[858booyah]

I mean it was Svanson’s mess. We used say if it was your mess then clean it up.

Oli might have pulled his old act of throwing a guy knowing likely he won’t be with the club much longer.

I’m concerned about Leahy. Only 4 innings tonight. It could be him getting acclimated to going longer in games but if he can’t get past 4 or 5 then we have 2 guys at AAA ready to roll or it appears.

[Jnevel]

I completely understand the sentiment of trying your best to win every game. It’s a competition, right? That’s the goal. But I also understand how playing the long game can be more fruitful in the end. I personally would have went to Soriano to relieve Graceffo and then brought Soriano back out in the 9th had it worked. But Ollie went to Svanson and it worked. At that point it made sense to bring him back for the 9th. And to me, once he got us down 3-1 with runners on, it was over with Chapman coming in and the bottom of the order of our anemic offense coming up. Therefore, I think our manager did the right thing from that point forward. We learn more through our failures in life than our successes. Hopefully, this helps Svanson. We will see.

[Jnevel]

I’m with you on the Leahy concern Booyah. I think Fitts would be a better option at this point. Leahy has been more lucky than good.

[blingboy]

A starter has to be efficient, so he must be able to pound the zone without getting hit around. He has to be able to do it more than once through the lineup, and that seems to be Leahy’s problem. I don’t assume Fitts or Dobbins will be any better vs a big league lineup, but they should both get a look at some point.

I was not real impressed with the defense last night. Despite the diving catch, I did not think Fermin was aggressive out there, especially early. It could be he was being careful, keeping it in front of him, etc., due to lack of regular turns out there. I also was not impressed with the left side of the infield. Gorman is OK and Saggese is OK for a UT, but some nights OK is not really good enough. Urias was lost out there, but a third string SS is likely to be. That contributed to Svanson’s troubles. I think we do OK when our best alignment is out there, but when we start subbing and moving guys around it falls apart pretty quick.

We really do need a left fielder and a center fielder who doesn’t need to be hit for late. We also need an upgrade over Pages. He is not even good defensively.

[ZTR]

I guess the positive news is that if Leahy moves to the pen the pen improves.

We shall see how it all plays out over the next couple of weeks.

[Brian Walton]

bling said:

I don’t assume Fitts or Dobbins will be any better vs a big league lineup, but they should both get a look at some point.

Career MLB results as a starter:

Fitts 14 starts, 3.79 ERA, .727 OPS against
Dobbins 11 starts, 4.25 ERA, .712 OPS against
Leahy 3 starts, 5.14 ERA, .845 OPS against

Which one is not like the others?

For me, the question is how many starts Leahy is given before a change is made. It looks to me like there are two starting options available who are likely to be better. And we probably all agree that the pen needs help and there isn’t much at Memphis to call upon.

So conceivably, both the rotation and pen would improve. But someone would have to admit that the Leahy starting idea did not pan out.

[blingboy]

Fitts has been a 4+ inning guy trying to get through the lineup twice, same as Leahy. He could get better though, and has looked good this year in AAA. Not sure what kind of pen support he is used to. I hope to see Dobbins at some point.

[SoonerinNC]

Ollie will not compete if we are behind. We are down two runs going into the 8th and he brings in Svanson. I understand him clinging to Svanson because of how good he was last year. And Svanson pitches a scoreless 8th and we close to 2-1. So he put Svanson in a position to suceed and he did. But instead of letting it go at that he puts him in a position to fail and he did.

We have come from behind in 5 of our 8 wins. The game changes dramatically when you are 6 runs down rather than one. Why not use Romero or O’Brien in the 9th to keep the game close. I suspect he was saving them for Sunday. A lot of good that did. At least use Soriano who in large has been more successful than Svanson.

Ollie does this all the time and too many times the secondary guys let the deficit get larger and mostly too large for anyhope for a comeback.

[gscottar]

The problem is that we have too many secondary guys. You can’t use the same two or three relievers every day over the span of 162 games. Leahy to the pen should gain more traction at some point.

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