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Here’s my overall season assessment of Hicks, disregarding all the micro stats. He’s had 22 appearances. Did he do his “job” in each of those appearances or not? Yes or no. I think the vast majority of people would come up with very close numbers to mine, if not exactly the same as mine.
He’s done his “job” in 18 of those 22 outings by my liking (4 times he has not done his “job”). That’s pretty good, but it’d be nice if you had a shutdown closer who does better. Regardless, it’s still pretty good.
The concern might be the trend. Of the 4 times he has not done his “job,” 3 of them have come in his last 6 outings and coincided with the team’s May swoon.
Rats, rest assured that I understand you believe what you see with your eyes. Having a debate on those grounds is pointless. However, there are others in the discussion here.
Euro, not looking at the numbers, your assessment seems reasonable. I would also add that what changed in May is Hicks’ usage pattern. He was better in April when pitching regularly in the ninth in save situations. Those chances all but dried up in May and his workload was not nearly as consistent. That could helped knock him off-center.
Regarding Hicks, his ERA is now 3.98. If the goal is win or contend for a championship, you need a closer with an era well under 3.00. Obviously there are other metrics that are equally important, but this is not going to hunt.
Well if we have learned any lesson over the last few years it is that acquiring relievers from elsewhere does not work for the Cardinals.
Cecil: disaster
Gregerson: disaster
Holland: disaster
Leone: disaster
Miller: not very impressive thus farBud Norris was pretty good and Nicasio was pretty good but we only had him for one month.
Recent history tells us that we should develop our closer from within whether that is Hicks, CMart, Gant, Brebbia or a combination. Heck I would even throw Gallegos in the mix.
well I didn’t get to watch too much this weekend though I usually avoid the cubs cards games cause I hate the cubs that much. I was able to keep tabs though. hitting is still iffy but pitching was great this series. can we take it forward, I hope so. still a great series sweep.
Interestingly, Miller (26 appearances) and Hicks (22 appearances) have the same 3.98 ERA right now. Both have yielded 9 earned runs in 20 1/3 innings.
Hicks’ ERA in his first 16 games was 1.84. His ERA in the last 6 games is 9.53. As Brian suggests, perhaps a lot of this is due to the disruption in his usage pattern. If so, maybe as an young and inexperienced reliever, he doesn’t respond well to bumps in the road. Hopefully that will change with experience, but until it does, Shildt needs to do better job of allocating innings to him.
Miller, on the other hand, has shown steady improvement over the course of his 26 games. His ERA started out high (was over 10 after his 3rd game). Since then it has gradually dropped. It fell under 4 for the first time after the Saturday win over the cubs. His WHIP was near or above 2 for the first half of his 26 appearances, but has dropped to 1.43 currently. His WHIP is just 0.9 over his last 12 outings.
Hicks appears to be overthrowing and sometimes just doesn’t get back in sync. Also he seems to move away from the slider. He destroyed Baez with it and I kept waiting for him to use it more.
I think Martinez will be the closer. The Hicks Hiccup tonight is probably another step in that direction.
Looks like the pitching is settling a bit. Hudson, Flaherty and Mikolas appear to be settling in and we have Martinez, Hicks, Gant, Brebbia and maybe Gallegos to give us quality innings.
Hoped to see Knizner get his first hit tonight. Looks like he was pressing. He usually doesn’t chase out of the zone that much.
Unless he can’t command it (I did not see today’s game) his 102 mph sinker should be used more. Especially if you need ground balls. I seen so many young kids throwing a slider so much that their fastball starts losing velocity. I would also like to see him throw a cutter, if it is effective.
While I really liked the 4 game win streak I am worried about the continued lack of offense. Most of those games have been low scoring affairs and our batters seemed to have some anemic BAs in the past few weeks.
June has started off well and it could be a good month for recovery but starting today the boys will need to have their big boy pants on because they will not see another off day until they have played 20 more games. That means that starting pitching will have to be effective or the bullpen will be worn down to a nub by the end of that streak.
One good thing is that the streak will consist of Miami for 6 games, Cincy for 4, the Mets for 4, the Cubs for 3 and the return of the defecting hero AP with his gang for 3 games at the end of the run.
GO CARDS
One good thing is that the streak will consist of Miami for 6 games, Cincy for 4, the Mets for 4, the Cubs for 3 and the return of the defecting hero AP with his gang for 3 games at the end of the run.
That’s a good stretch for the record. That said, we’ve seen the team stub their toe on “easy” stretches before so hopefully they are paying attention. It would be nice to go 13-7 or 14-6 in that stretch to really take advantage of weak teams.
Hicks appears to be overthrowing and sometimes just doesn’t get back in sync. Also he seems to move away from the slider. He destroyed Baez with it and I kept waiting for him to use it more.
He did destroy Baez with it but then his sliders against Contreras were three feet off of the plate. I would also add that some of his pitches were close as were Waino’s. I didn’t much care for the home plate ump. He squeezed all of the pitchers on both sides.
My biggest complaint with the umpire was his inconsistency. This guy was all over the place. That is one of the reasons that the score was so low. The hitters become disoriented with that kind of inconsistency.
Ozuna was called out on a pitch at least 6 inches inside and then a pitch much closer to the zone was called a ball. I’m not sure how accurate the square is but the ump can’t have both sides. Some miss a lot of low pitches and it is pretty clear that they call a lot of curve balls wrong.
The talk today should be about A) Wainwright’s gutsy job in a big game. He can still do it but there’s too many iffy games in between. Ya gotta give him credit despite all the BBs. B) Wong’s contributions to this win. He did it all sensationally. The SB and back handed catch were huge. C) Gant coming in to close it down in a big spot. Shildt seems to have lost some confidence in Hicks. D) Knizner starting a catching an A-1 important game with Wainwright. I was impressed with his debut.
The results of this series could be a springboard to better days. The Cards were on the ropes heading into this Cubs 3-gamer. Can you imagine if we had lost 3?
Last four Game Scores – Hudson=61 Mikolas=62 Flaherty=69 Wainwright=79.
I manicured my fingers yesterday… I’m a nail-biter. Did a pretty good job. My hat is off for Wainwright, who was that guy?
Speaking of AP, since he left StL his lifetime BA has dropped from .335 to .301. Will he keep playing after it drops to .300?
Wow! .335 to .301. Never would have guessed Albert has lost that many points off his BA. That is a huge slide…..thanks Lou! I would love to know if Albert had to do it all over again, would he had left St. Louis? The only way you could get the real truth out of him is if he was under the influence of a CIA truth serum.
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