- This topic has 122 replies, 17 voices, and was last updated 2 years, 2 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Carpenter on the basepaths always reminded me of Kevin Kline’s Otto West character in the final scene of the film “A Fish Called Wanda”…
Great movie! If the Sox come in and sweep, I wonder if Ollie would be axed by Sunday evening? That would be a new low in about a season and 3/16 of futility. The philosophical differences this time could be that Ollie loses too much and our philosophy is to win.
I hope I’m wrong, but at this phase I don’t think he’s going anywhere. When they extended him I viewed it as an odd sort of symbolical gesture intended to illustrate that Johnny still maintains command and control. What else could it possibly be?
If Johnny says Oli is amazing, then he’s amazing. Billy must think Oli’s voice is still fresh enough.
Agree with this. To me, Carp just doesn’t “get it” running the bases.
I have been trading a lot of my baseball time over to watching NCAA games the last couple seasons. As a general observation, college players don’t run the bases well. Not sure why. I guess it usually goes back to what you’re taught and practice. I also think some base running skills were previously developed in the more trial-and-error nature of informal “sandlot” games, where it isn’t such a big deal to make mistakes. Easier to learn the good and bad risks. Players don’t get that these days.
Euro, the answer is sorta to your theory. The game changed to a stationary game and de-emphised base running and base stealing. It’s the downside of cybernetics in the game brought to us by an extremely low talent player himself that ended up a bust on every level but got the GM job in Oakland.
There are a lot of other reasons why base running isn’t up to snuff. I too watch college baseball and I’m appalled at the errors made on the base paths, lack of situational hitting, and basic fundamentals. Again I trace it back to the way the game is taught now and the lack of knowledge passed to the players in general.
It even extends to the art of pitching. Pitchers today are blowing out their arms left and right trying to overthrow instead of learning how to pitch and control the zone. They simply try to overpower the hitter. I’ve never seen so many TJ surgeries. It’s unreal.
Another cause besides my disdain for the computer geeks, is salaries drive this behavior as well. Mediocrity gets rewarded. It’s ridiculous.
But back to base running. Kids are taught how to run bases. High level select ball is still a small ball game and kids are taught the right way. Where they lose the skill is when they get older and it’s not maintained through routine or practice. The need to be good in that phase is not required because they stand around waiting for a walk trying to get the pitch count up and a lazy pitcher all to ready to oblige. They then stand at first because it’s too risky in the computers eyes to steal a base. While standing there they wait for another walk to advance and then hope for a Jimmie jack or they dont know what to do if the ball is in play or not a homer. Do I advance halfway or do I tag up or do I just run. They don’t know what to do in any given situation based on outs, inning, or score situation.
It’s boring uneducated baseball on all levels.
I’m expecting the Cards to sweep the White Sox and get to .500 on Sunday.
7+ innings of shut out pitching from Gray tonight will get things started nicely.
Getting swept or not the Cardinals are not going to do a 180 and fire Ollie right after giving him an extension. That would actually make them look even more foolish than giving him the extension in the first place.
TexasCard,
Well said. The game is hard to watch at times at the big league level. Slug, slug, slug, Strikeout, strikeout, strikeout, etc, etc when all you need to do is make contact and put the ball in play.As Whitey Herzog said in his book…..”You’re Missing A Great Game..”
r/Esteemed Rat
And the Doppler Radar looks all clear. At least as of 1:00 est. Assume this game will be played. Tomorrow afternoon’s game looks a little iffy. Maybe we will be lucky and it will be moved to tomorrow night..:)
Din-din today is a trip to the Lakeview, the Amish restaurant that sits on the lake north of town. Catfish Fiddlers, mashed potatoes/gravy, noodles, dressing, green beans, sweet iced tea, and a piece of chocolate cake with white icing and some soft serve vanilla ice cream for dessert. Might even bring home a Straweberry Pie!
r/Esteemed Rat
Yep Texas, a lot of station to station mentality. Can’t take risks because the next batter is gonna show everybody why we teach launch angle and exit velo.
Never was a Reds or Rose fan, but I loved how he rounded 1B on a single just daring the OFer to bobble the ball or relax for just a split second.
Interesting thoughts, Euro. I wonder too with all of the emphasis on home runs, and contraptions that will measure bat speed, launch angle etc, if there is so much of that going on in the developmental stages of learning the game that base running is not given much training.
From an amusement standpoint, sometimes these series can fool you. I’m predicting a fun contentious series….the later part not being favorable to we Cardinal fans. But we’ll still clip them 2-3 games.
What’s for din-din tonight one may ask? It’ll be Friday night, so of course catfish fiddlers will be on the docket. Same ole’ Friday…..just me and Rat feasting on the fiddlers. We need to get more of you guys involved. I know what you guys are thinking….catfish are bottom dwelling, scum sucking, muck rucking, low-life, worthless fish. Well for the most part that assumption is correct, but the darn things are pretty tasty despite their tremendous deficiencies. I would like to see a couple of you guys toss aside your Fiddler fears and hop on board the catfish fiddler din-din bandwagon just for tonight. I guarantee you that you’ll be back for more. Hopefully by this time next month we’ll have a whole parade of posters indulging.
You almost never see a baserunner go 1B to 3B on a single anymore and at one time I always had reasonably realistic hopes and expectations that he would. Scoring from 1B on an Xtra base hit also seems to be incredibly rare. I also always thought that awareness of the game situation and quick wits normally contribute more to being an excellent baserunner than does the type of speed required for an NFL wideout. Scott Rolen and Larry Walker always come to mind when I think of an incredibly astute baserunner. And Tommy Edman is the smartest Cardinal baserunner I’ve seen in quite a while.
Brewers put up 3 vs Cubs in the top 8th on small ball. Ahead 3-1, at CHI
Single
SB
Single
SB
Single
SB
Single
SBMIL stole 4 bases in the 8th? I’m going to have to look up the record.
Edit…Best I can tell, the record for SB’s by a team in an inning is 8 SB’s and dates to 1915. However, the info I obtained is a bit sketchy because apparently there have been some rule changes. Anyone know anything?
LF B. Donovan L
C W. Contreras R
1B P. Goldschmidt R
3B N. Arenado R
DH A. Burleson L
SS Masyn Winn R
RF L. Nootbaar L
2B Nolan Gorman L
CF Mike Siani LI’m trying to recall the last time Goldschmidt’s name appeared in the 3 slot. At any rate, now that he’s hitting 62 pts. below his career BA it seems like a good time to place him back into that all important slot…
I can’t figure out the Contreras at #2 in the lineup thing. Winn at at #2, Contreras at #5, Burly at #6 makes more sense.
Milwaukee holds on and downs the Cubs 3-1 at Wrigley. A three run 8th was the key.
And I agree Pugs – Fridays should officially be “Cardinal Catfish Fiddlers Friday” from now on out. In other words, it’s CCFF!
r/Esteemed Rat
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.