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It looks like we are playing minor league defense tonight.
And looking around, pretty much our entire team on the field came up from Memphis this season.
Rincon gives us a 1-2-3 inning – crooked hat and all.
Burleson hits a mammoth shot that replay says was foul by inches. Then Walker swings at 3 balls at least 6 inches off the plate. Cards go down in their half of the seventh.
Rincon back out for his second inning after debuting last night.
Colorado sends 10 to the plate and gets 6 runs after coming into the inning without a hit. 6-3 bad guys.
Palm Beach guaranteed a non-losing season with the win tonight. One game to go and they are a game over .500.
It feels like whenever Liberatore doesn’t give up a bunch of runs in the first, he always gives them up in the fifth. Some of this was batted ball luck with balls just evading Saggese at SS. Mostly though, the Cardinals are just throwing the ball all over the place and missing throws.
And now that’s 5 runs in the inning. Still only 1 out. That hit was off Gastellum or “Gassy” as Pugs likes to call him.
He could be CC. But not right now. He has struggled a lot this season. He came on strong at the end of last season too, coincidentally.
It was quite the game to watch. It all started even earlier than the video above when the Cardinals made a challenge and lost the replay challenge. The way Eddings announced it was like he was saying “screw you Cardinals for wasting my time on this challenge.” Apparently, he was already upset at Ollie for something else prior and it just kept playing out again and again because Eddings kept doing something to provoke Ollie. As I said in a post above, you used to see this kind of ongoing spat happen but very rarely does it occur anymore. Eddings really ought to be fired for his conduct.
Doug Eddings had some kind of beef with Ollie and is taking it out on the Cardinals. First he announces a challenge call in a way to piss Ollie off. Then he charges Bruihl with an automatic ball when Eddings wasn’t even over to call a pitch because he was arguing with Ollie. Then he tosses Ollie. Then he literally gives Colorado a run on an obvious out call at the plate where he calls the runner safe presumably just to continue to spite the Cardinals. You usually don’t see stuff like this anymore, but it has come out tonight. It will be interesting to see what happens throughout the rest of this series.
You have Fermin, Torres, Saggese, and Prieto all competing for essentially 2 positions. Prieto is the odd one out because he can’t play the OF and is the worst at defense. The other 2 bench spots will be a catcher and someone who can more reliably play the OF although I suppose they could get cute and keep 3 of the above and not have a reliable outfielder on their bench like they have for awhile this season.
I watched the first 4 innings. Mathews had a lot of borderline pitches called balls (they were all legit balls but one, but really close to being either). However, he was missing by a lot on the others that weren’t close. Part of this seems to be his “game” and it worked better in the Minors than Majors. Had most of the close ones been 5mm closer, they would have been strikes and he may have gone 6 instead of 5. I would like him to clean up some of the waste pitches. The changeup in the dirt and throwing the high fastball 6 inches above the zone seemed to be the 2 culprits last night that added to his pitch count and very rarely got a swing. I’m less worried about the fastball getting there because often it is. The changeup though may need either some practice or rework in the offseason to be able to place it more frequently just under or at the bottom of the zone rather than in the dirt.
Mathews, despite his flaws, has the most talent in our rotation today. I would expect him to be far better than any of the others over his career. I’ve always been a Pallante fan, but sometimes he relies heavily on ground ball luck to save him. I like McGreevey and Leahy too but their pitches are often average or a little below average and they get by on location (which is good) and on the fact they pitch half their games at Busch and nearly all their games in front of a very good defense (which is more lucky).
The 4 Minor League affiliates get a clean sweep tonight. Doyle and Odle both had great performances.
I have to think most Dodgers fans looking at our lineup tonight are saying “Who are those guys?” Aside from Walker and Herrera (and maybe Baez because of his first game hype), I’m sure 99% of Dodgers fans haven’t heard of another player in our lineup. It’s Jordan Walker and some guys he picked up at the local city park vs the best team money can buy.
The Springfield Cardinals just took 6 walks in a row to start the top of the second. They lead 5-0 and don’t have a hit.
Don’t be talking bad about my boy Pedro! He’s the Oquendo of the modern era – catcher, pitcher, 1B, 2B – he can play it all!
It is likely they let him play because they were chasing the playoffs and they thought he made them better, even if sore. Then Winn got hurt and they justified that they needed him at SS. Hindsight is 20/20. It clearly looks like a bad decision now. It probably was a bad decision then too, but it’s hard to say what was known or how much pain there was initially.
Of the two sides, which do you think is more responsible for the increase in costs suffered by the fans?
Both! I’m not sure which is more responsible. Probably the owners, but both share equal blame. Both are in a money grab situation because they are playing a monopolized game that is well protected by federal laws. I don’t personally blame them for wanting to make more money. Who doesn’t? But they both have been getting massively inflated increases in earnings for the past 30 years and at some point that has to slow down or fans will mostly quit watching.
The Dodgers get Yamamoto and Skubal in back-to-back games. We counter with rookies Mautz and Mathews. The Dodgers get Ohtani, Betts, and Freeman in their lineup. We counter with Baez, Saggese, and Torres. It’s a good thing the baseball gods made this game so unpredictable.
And this is where the real money is made. I wouldn’t be surprised if many teams have a break even operating profit year to year with some gaining a little and some losing a little. But when the team gets sold, the absurd increase in valuation brings a huge windfall to the owner.
However, I’m not crying for the players either. They are very well paid for what they do. It’s enough to heavily incentivize thousands to try to make that a career.
It’s the fans that get left behind again and again in these negotiations.
Saggese with 2 huge games in a row. Looking good offensively and defensively. Also a couple key hits from Baez (that weren’t home runs) and another big set of bullpen innings from Graceffo made this one possible. Great job by Stanek, Gastellum, and O’Brien late as well.
This is the kind of game where you’re comforted to know that you have Pedro Pages ready to go at the back end of the bullpen for as many innings as are needed.
They will owe $13 million to Contreras and Arenado next year plus likely $500k to buy out Urias. If they don’t pick up options on Stanek and Urias (both probably unlikely) and Gorman is let go, I think they’ll be around $75 million in salary counting all the arbitration eligible guys. Maybe $80 million. I would think that gives them at least $30-$40 million to spend as additional dollars in 2027. Maybe more if there becomes a salary floor. That still keeps them well under what they used to spend on Major League salaries.
I’m thinking another reclamation starting pitcher like May for $15 million and a reclamation 3B or CF guy for another $15 million plus a bullpen veteran arm probably from the left side. All on 1-year deals.
We could also see a trade for a longer term asset should the team try to move Crooks or Bernal.
I’m with you there Albert. I don’t like who he is at the plate right now. I don’t think that approach bodes well for his future.
