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Because of the seven-hour time difference I don’t get to watch these games live (unless it’s a day game which would start about 8 p.m. here), so my routine is to rise in the morning, fire up the ol’ Dell and click on the Cardinals website, hoping against hope that the birds have turned the corner. This Sunday morning was another disappointment, sending me to my coffee and croissants with a scowl on my face and a grumpy bonjour to my spouse. If it’s a win, I catch up on MLB TV. If it’s a loss, I don’t usually bother. It’s starting to rain now, which completes my mood of despair and ends any thought of getting some yard work done. I guess I’ll have to settle for an afternoon in my fauteuil watching the French open tennis final.
Oh well, it’s early June, I tell myself. Anything is possible. I’ll keep with it even if we fall to the cellar. Which certainly is not impossible.
I hate to join the “sack the manager” club, but I’m beginning to wonder what else we can do. After all, as I said earlier, this appears to be a leadership problem.Every time I look at that lineup I think to myself we SHOULD be winning. Nearly all of these guys have got what it takes. What if Carp performs just a little bit like he has in past years? What if de Jong shakes this current slump? We know he can. What if Goldschmidt starts to play like the guy we traded for? What if Oz turns it up a notch or two? What if Bader chokes up just a little bit? Suppose Yadi keeps on chugging like the Yadi we all know and love? What if Wong finally gets his bat to match his glove. All the pieces are there. There is plenty of potential to power a potent team. But the gears are just not turning. I don’t see going out to find new pieces to fix the lineup (except for a pitcher or two) as the solution. None of these guys is a bad player, nor even a mediocre player. Somebody needs to grease the gears we already have and get them performing like thy are capable of doing. Who? Is there a real leader among the players?
We all got excited and felt great when we were 10 games over 500 and the future looked bright. I’m tired of all the gloomy posts (including mine).I see Carp’s trip down the order didn’t last long. Think he found what he was looking for while there?
I see Carp’s trip down the order didn’t last long. Think he found what he was looking for while there?
I’m not making any suggestions regarding Yadi, Knizer or anyone else. I only remarked that it’s comforting to have a more than competent backup catcher who, on the rare occasions he gets to play, performs well and contributes both offensively and defensively, and that it was an instance of a good move by the FO in light of a number of less admirable examples many of us lament.
However, BW is right, if we get to the point of thinking about Wieters over Goldschmidt we are indeed in deep doo-doo.Wieters is still looking like a good move on the part of the FO. Nice to have a positive among the ocean of negatives.
Have a problem with hitting? Perhaps you should try to solve it by sitting your best hitter. Oh, I guess we tried that.
Theory and managing philosophy has evolved over the years, I suppose, along with the obsession with pitch count, but this need to change pitchers every inning after five, or occasionally six, is based on what precisely?
Well, I think the answer to this May dilemma is quite simple. First we need to do something about our pitching. Then we need to improve our hitting. That done, we should start to win more ballgames. N’est-ce pas?
I don’t know about the rest of you folks but I get the jitters every time the call goes out for Hicks to work in relief. It makes me think of that line in Winston Groom’s book Forrest Gump, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”
That pretty much wraps up my feelings about Hicks. I want to like him. We certainly need him and God knows he can be exciting. But you never know from one pitch to the next if he’s going to be hard and crunchy or soft and sticky. Sometimes I detect a look of worry/fear on his face. But perhaps that’s just my imagination because that’s the look on my face when he ascends the mound. So far clenching my fists has only been partially successful.
P.S. I always did prefer the crunchy ones.Jeez, these two guys yammering on and on and on about everything except the game they are supposed to be announcing – their grandmothers, a game they once threw a bad pitch in… I’m screaming SHUT UP WILL YA.
I agree with Minuteman on Langosh. If you missed the game and want a rundown of what happened you sure won’t get it from her. She may be a nice person, but she has a hard time covering a baseball game.
What kind of person with half a brain hits a wall with his hand? Especially when his living depends on those hands? This was no accident it was sheer stupidity.
