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We need a lineup of all Goldschmidt’s tonight! He’s going to be gunning for Mark Whiten’s Cardinals record.
Yeah Cards667, O’Neill is tough to like. He goes into long cold spells, his body language often looks like he doesn’t care, and he swings and misses at sliders again and again and again. But maybe tonight he’s going to turn back the clock and look like confident Tyler from 2019.
I’ve noticed we’re seeing a ton of sliders and read that slider useage is up in general across the league. But man do we see a lot of them.
You may be right or wrong 1TD. I’m not sure. The computer models basically say it doesn’t matter as long as your 5 best hitters hit in the top 5. But computers don’t really know the first thing about playing actual real baseball so I think there’s some truth both ways. My belief is that you never really know what the exact situation is going to be at any point in the game so the randomness just is always going to throw any plan you had at the beginning out of whack and so you just need to be flexible and adapt. And that’s one thing I love about this year’s version of the team – there’s tons of flexibility built in. But I understand the other side of the argument that some people really like structure and consistency and having lots of moving parts takes away from their focus. So for some it’s good and others it’s bad. But tonight it just isn’t going to matter. We will win regardless.
TexasCard – it doesn’t matter what the lineup is tonight. We’re winning either way. Besides, lineup’s don’t make a lot of difference as long as your best hitters hit more.
He was definitely # 1 on TCN and MLB.com. I’m not sure about everywhere else. But maybe since he’s only 24, the better way to say it Bling is that he hasn’t lived up to it yet. But he may still get there. At least that’s the positive approach for tonight! After all, Nootbaar is older and I don’t see anyone thinking that he has no more growth in him yet. We’d be foolish to be too hard on Dylan.
Carlson was our number 1 about the same time that Arozarena was like number 12. And honestly, I’m still not sure which will be better. Arozarena has been worth 1.5 more WAR than Carlson over the past 2 seasons total so call it one win per season better at best. But Arozarena is now 30 and Carlson is just 24. Carlson is still one of the youngest outfielders in baseball.
By the way, when I was at Memphis the other day I watched a nonchalant Yepez put together 3 terrible at bats in a row. And, he had generally been terrible at Memphis so far this year. So when he was standing in the batters box for his third at bat I looked him in the face and stared at him and he looked at me and then looked back and then looked at me again and I mouthed “Do your job” to him and he looked away and then looked back one more time and we just stared at each other for a moment. Then he got into the batters box and hit a double off the wall in right. And he stopped looking nonchalant. Then he proceeded to go 3 for 4 the next day with a double and a homer. And, he had 2 hits again yesterday. I’m not really suggesting that I had anything to do with it. But it’s fun to just throw out there. I really hope he finds it again. He just lost it at some point last year. We sure could use another big bat.
I think Motter is just in that last position on the roster that doesn’t matter and they’d prefer he hang out on the bench over Yepez doing so. If we had a speedy guy on the 40 man, then it could have gone to him I guess for pinch running purposes, but we don’t. So Motter will waste away on the bench. I think that could be DeJong, but at least for now, his bat is working. Let’s hope that continues.
I do think this is the right thing for Walker. He just isn’t ready to play the outfield yet. If the team was winning (like we are about to be), then he could have stayed. But our record is ugly and right now we need the better defense.
Ok Euro. If we lose anytime in the next . . . Let’s say 4 games (I think that’s fair) then I’m fired for having a crappy idea. I’m not sure what that looks like on this forum. Maybe you folks get to incessantly bash all of my thoughts for the next 30 days? Maybe Brian just kicks me out for good and keeps my paid membership? I don’t know. Open for suggestions. And if it does work, then I have a feeling that we’re going to have a lot of fun together over the next 10 games or so. Either way you guys win!
Thank you team for sticking with the confidence. We will win tonight. And hopefully that energy catapults is to something like 16-4 over the next 20 games. There is no question that this team can do that. They just need to play together and make it happen.
Matz has 3 good outings in a row from our other starters to show him the way. He can make it 4 in a row tonight.
Thanks CardsFan552! It doesn’t matter what the odds are tonight. We refuse to be beaten. It’s like the rally squirrel. Our opposition won’t know what hit them.
ZTR – it’s doubtful they do. And that really doesn’t matter one bit. All I’m asking for is one game. It can’t hurt, right? Let’s do our part. Or don’t. And just keep hoping for someone else to do theirs.
Go Cards! You got this one tonight. Matz is going to carry the flame from the torch that Flaherty lit and passed onto Montgomery and Woodford. And our offense is going to have a lot of fun tonight.
As I stated in my long rant earlier last night, losing breeds losing. And as long as we keep thinking about being losers, we will be. It’s not about our quality of players. Edman is a great defender. He’s shown us that time and again. And yet last night, he essentially made 3 errors. Helsley has nasty stuff. And yet last night he let up and gave up a double and a homer. When you expect to lose, there’s a good chance you’ll find a way to do so. This statement may sound silly to a lot of people, but I fully believe our fans including us are every bit as much accountable for this problem as our players. We need positive attitudes in both our fans and our players right now. But when we all keep piling on blame, it’s hard to not buy into that narrative. That being said, I’m now a hypocrite for blaming us on being negative as part of our problem. But I’ve seen lots of teams who were the best on paper implode. And I’ve seen a lot of David’s beat up Goliaths because they believed in themselves and others believed in them.
I suggest we try a little experiment here at TCN. And as silly as it sounds, I challenge each and everyone at The Cardinal Nation to get behind our boys 100% for this next game and going forward every game until we lose again. No blame. Just positive attitude. I know some of us are going to have to try really hard! But please give it at least one game. We ans fans can make a difference and it’s time to step up and do so. Tonight our losing stops and The Cardinal Nation is going to lead the way.
Losing sucks. Every time you see a team lose a lot, the hole just feels bigger and bigger and the attitudes get worse and worse, which many times breeds even more losing. Because what happens to the players is the same thing that is happening here and amongst every other message board. People are trying to point out the one cause of all that losing as if they can just eliminate that and all will be right again. And honestly, sometimes that truly does work. Not because there really ever was just one cause. It’s not logical that Ollie is really the sole cause of our losing (or Mo or DeWitt either). It works for the same reason the losing was not working. Because many times it really is all psychological. When you feel like you’re a winner, you’re more likely to win. When your team is hot and playing well, it is much more likely to stay that way. And when you’re losing, you often keep mostly losing unless something fundamentally changes. Either someone needs to be fired or one player needs to do something courageous or someone needs to come out of nowhere to suddenly be a surprise hero. Because otherwise it’s just all of us and all of them pointing fingers at every possible cause of this losing, which just continues on the losing. This is just where we are. We are losing not because we traded away all our good players and kept the bad ones nor because our owner is too cheap nor because our starters went from average to terrible. We’re losing because it has become our mindset to keep conjuring up a million causes for our situation rather than just stepping up and overcoming it. The players feel this too right now. So we either need a leader, a sacrifice, or a savior. Or somehow everyone just needs to forget about it and believe in the team. But the latter isn’t likely to happen. So here we sit.
Honestly, my hope is that Jack’s yelling incident and subsequent 180 two nights ago was that step. It may have inspired Monty with the guts he showed last night. Now we just need a similar situation on offense against a good pitcher. But that’s just my hope – that what Jack did somehow infected the pitchers.
That’s my stream of consciousness . . .
Thanks Euro. Now Kent Bottenfield I do remember. Interesting pick.
I think I’m checking out on this game. Going to have to dream of a winner. Neither team seems to want to break their streak of losing the first game in every series.
