18 STL April Wins = Franchise Record, 1st Place

[illiniguy]

We should have swept them this weekend. After playing them I am not worried about them. We are playing pretty crappy right now and we still should have swept them.

[wolf stansson]

We should have swept them this weekend. After playing them I am not worried about them. We are playing pretty crappy right now and we still should have swept them.

One inning of good offense in three games and you should have swept? Hmm...

[Andy]

We should have swept them this weekend. After playing them I am not worried about them. We are playing pretty crappy right now and we still should have swept them.

One inning of good offense in three games and you should have swept? Hmm...

Yeah, because those errors Soriano made on Friday always happen. I need to be reminded how many good offensive innings STL had in that series, because I believe the answer will be pretty close to zero.

[illiniguy]

We should have swept them this weekend. After playing them I am not worried about them. We are playing pretty crappy right now and we still should have swept them.

One inning of good offense in three games and you should have swept? Hmm...

Please keep hoping for the pixie dust to work. We gave away the first game and anyone who was watching knows it.

[sneakypower]

i admire your false confidence wolf

[CardsFanInChiTown]

I thought this article was pretty interesting.

 

 

FWIW I think baseball is more fun when both teams are playing well.

[SouthSideRyan]

I thought this article was pretty interesting.

 

 

FWIW I think baseball is more fun when both teams are playing well.

 

Who is this guy?

[TruffleShuffle]

I am as big a believer in "horseshoe up the cards' collective butt" as anyone, but here are some reasons not to worry about the cards:

 

1. A lot of overachieving hitters. Ryan Ludwick, it can be said with a high level of confidence, will not OPS above 1.000 this season. Skip Schumaker, unless he's made a great leap of improvement in his late 20s, is not going to keep getting on base 37.6% of the time. Adam Kennedy will not have a .391 OBP. In general, the Cards are really overachieving in the OBP department. There simply aren't enough dangerous hitters in this lineup for opposing pitchers to keep walking their players at the rate they've been walking. Teams are going to start attacking their hitters not named Pujols.

 

2. Their schedule. This has already been discussed.

 

3. Starting pitchers. Wainwright is coming into his own and is a solid #2, but the rest? Kyle Lohse is Kyle Lohse. He gave up 22 HR but has given up ONE this season. That won't last. Opposing players are slugging only .364 against him, but they've been around .450 in previous years. The power numbers will improve against him, the low BABIP will come up, and he'll be back to being Kyle Lohse.

 

Braden Looper - 22 HR allowed last year, 2 this year. Same thing with him, the low power numbers and low BABIP are anomalies and will even out.

 

Todd Wellemeyer - again, low BABIP, and his walk rate will end up hurting him. He's a decent back of the rotation option, not a solid #3.

 

4. Bullpen - Filled with mediocre players. Ron Villone is 38 years old and not good. Randy Flores - again, not good. Ryan Franklin is average unless he's really lucky like he was last year.

 

5. Health - granted, two starting pitchers have been shelved since the beginning of the year. But the guys who make up this team have been very healthy, including players like Troy Glaus and Joel Pineiro, who are about as likely to make it through the season healthy as Angel Guzman.

 

 

The Cards aren't a bad team, but they aren't a good one either. As long as the Cubs as well as they should be expected to play, they'll beat the Cardinals this season.

[haltz]

The strength of schedule thing is hardly worth mentioning. This isn't college football, it's 20% of a MLB season. Let's say the Cardinals have played opponents that will end up with a .450 winning percentage. That's, what, less than two games under .500 over 33 games? You won't find anyone, on Cards sites, or people here that truly do believe in baseball magic that think the Cardinals are a 103-win juggernaut like their record suggests if you take it literally.

 

The question is whether they can play something like .496 ball from here on out, because being around 87 wins would give them a puncher's chance. That may not even be likely, but it's a possibility, even though a team EqA that's second in baseball and a team ERA+ of 117 continuing probably isn't.

[rocket]

We should have swept them this weekend. After playing them I am not worried about them. We are playing pretty crappy right now and we still should have swept them.

One inning of good offense in three games and you should have swept? Hmm...

Please keep hoping for the pixie dust to work. We gave away the first game and anyone who was watching knows it.

 

wolf is right. i think he completely understands that the cardinals aren't as good as they've been playing. but at the same time, it's not like the cubs played brilliantly against the cards and got unlucky.

[CardsFanInChiTown]

I thought this article was pretty interesting.

 

 

FWIW I think baseball is more fun when both teams are playing well.

 

Who is this guy?

 

 

Are you saying my timing is curious?

 

Perhaps.

[Banedon]

We should have swept them this weekend. After playing them I am not worried about them. We are playing pretty crappy right now and we still should have swept them.

One inning of good offense in three games and you should have swept? Hmm...

Please keep hoping for the pixie dust to work. We gave away the first game and anyone who was watching knows it.

 

wolf is right. i think he completely understands that the cardinals aren't as good as they've been playing. but at the same time, it's not like the cubs played brilliantly against the cards and got unlucky.

 

Yep. You might be able to blame Soriano for Friday, but there's no excuses for Sunday.

 

I just tell my Card fan buddies that the Cubs won the series because they outscored the Cards. :good:

[wolf stansson]

We should have swept them this weekend. After playing them I am not worried about them. We are playing pretty crappy right now and we still should have swept them.

One inning of good offense in three games and you should have swept? Hmm...

Please keep hoping for the pixie dust to work. We gave away the first game and anyone who was watching knows it.

 

wolf is right. i think he completely understands that the cardinals aren't as good as they've been playing. but at the same time, it's not like the cubs played brilliantly against the cards and got unlucky.

That's all I was getting at. Not sure how I get called the homer when someone who's team had one good inning just lost 2 of 3 games and he thinks they could have swept. Pot-kettle and all that.

i admire your false confidence wolf

I admire your ability to call people out without knowing anything about what they say or believe.

 

My belief that the Cardinals are at best an 85 win team is a recent one. If you had asked me before the season I would have told you they were doomed to lose at least 85 and could conceivably lose 90+. These early wins are all wins in the back. If they play like I expected them to play in the preseason from here on out (81 wins +/- 10, more likely -10) they'll be around an 85 win team. The reason for such a huge +/- is because there are so many unknowns on the team. Right now those unknowns are all positives which isn't going to be the case at the end of the season.

 

As I have posted in this very thread (nice critical reading comprehension skills, btw) they are getting incredibly lucky right now, with ground balls specifically. Basically, they are hitting them where they ain't and the other team is hitting them where they are. Those two things will balance out because right now it's benefiting the Cardinals at historically unprecedented levels. It's going to be a struggle for this team to be above .500. I think they are a lot more likely to do that now than I did before the season, but that has nothing to do with blind optimism or raised expectations. It has more to do with the wins we have in the bank already and the fact that Adam Kennedy's ld% is in line with his career norms, Kyle Lohse is pitching to levels more in line with his first 3 seasons development than last season and that Albert's elbow scuttle in the preseason was everything I thought it was, sensationalized old news.

[CubinNY]

We should have swept them this weekend. After playing them I am not worried about them. We are playing pretty crappy right now and we still should have swept them.

One inning of good offense in three games and you should have swept? Hmm...

Please keep hoping for the pixie dust to work. We gave away the first game and anyone who was watching knows it.

 

wolf is right. i think he completely understands that the cardinals aren't as good as they've been playing. but at the same time, it's not like the cubs played brilliantly against the cards and got unlucky.

That's all I was getting at. Not sure how I get called the homer when someone who's team had one good inning just lost 2 of 3 games and he thinks they could have swept. Pot-kettle and all that.

i admire your false confidence wolf

I admire your ability to call people out without knowing anything about what they say or believe.

 

My belief that the Cardinals are at best an 85 win team is a recent one. If you had asked me before the season I would have told you they were doomed to lose at least 85 and could conceivably lose 90+. These early wins are all wins in the back. If they play like I expected them to play in the preseason from here on out (81 wins +/- 10, more likely -10) they'll be around an 85 win team. The reason for such a huge +/- is because there are so many unknowns on the team. Right now those unknowns are all positives which isn't going to be the case at the end of the season.

 

As I have posted in this very thread (nice critical reading comprehension skills, btw) they are getting incredibly lucky right now, with ground balls specifically. Basically, they are hitting them where they ain't and the other team is hitting them where they are. Those two things will balance out because right now it's benefiting the Cardinals at historically unprecedented levels. It's going to be a struggle for this team to be above .500. I think they are a lot more likely to do that now than I did before the season, but that has nothing to do with blind optimism or raised expectations. It has more to do with the wins we have in the bank already and the fact that Adam Kennedy's ld% is in line with his career norms, Kyle Lohse is pitching to levels more in line with his first 3 seasons development than last season and that Albert's elbow scuttle in the preseason was everything I thought it was, sensationalized old news.

The Cards could be in it for the duration for the simple fact that they take walks and don't walk people. They also play pretty good defense (for the most part). They will have to be near perfect in the pitching department, but the NL Central isn't that tough.

[SouthSideRyan]

I thought this article was pretty interesting.

 

 

FWIW I think baseball is more fun when both teams are playing well.

 

Who is this guy?

 

 

Are you saying my timing is curious?

 

Perhaps.

 

No, just wondering what happened to you.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

The strength of schedule thing is hardly worth mentioning. This isn't college football, it's 20% of a MLB season. Let's say the Cardinals have played opponents that will end up with a .450 winning percentage. That's, what, less than two games under .500 over 33 games? You won't find anyone, on Cards sites, or people here that truly do believe in baseball magic that think the Cardinals are a 103-win juggernaut like their record suggests if you take it literally.

 

The question is whether they can play something like .496 ball from here on out, because being around 87 wins would give them a puncher's chance. That may not even be likely, but it's a possibility, even though a team EqA that's second in baseball and a team ERA+ of 117 continuing probably isn't.

 

I was talking about in the context of their pitching statistics. Having 3 games out of your first 42 against a Top 7 offense in the NL is remarkable.

[CardsFanInChiTown]

I thought this article was pretty interesting.

 

 

FWIW I think baseball is more fun when both teams are playing well.

 

Who is this guy?

 

 

Are you saying my timing is curious?

 

Perhaps.

 

No, just wondering what happened to you.

 

 

Ah, I've been busy with my job and another msg board. I still lurk quite a bit.

[wolf stansson]

The Cards could be in it for the duration for the simple fact that they take walks and don't walk people.

It's kind of unprecedented. It follows an organizational directive set forth this spring. I love it, but I don't think it is as easy of all the pitchers going "Oh wow, really? I'm not supposed to walk people?" and the hitters going "What's that? Not making outs is good?" I'd love it if it holds up all year, but I don't think it will. Especially the low walk rate with our starters.

[haltz]

I was talking about in the context of their pitching statistics. Having 3 games out of your first 42 against a Top 7 offense in the NL is remarkable.

I know what you meant. It wasn't directed at you.

 

We have plenty of reasons to think that Lohse/Wellemeyer/Looper/Pineiro won't combine for an above 100 ERA+, and the opponents sporting a collective .250 EqA or whatever is low on the list (and it was last on your list IIRC).

[TruffleShuffle]

i am wondering if there has been more of an organizational push for OBP than in previous years. they have a lineup that shouldn't be incredibly patient, but they're leading the league in walks.

[wolf stansson]

i am wondering if there has been more of an organizational push for OBP than in previous years. they have a lineup that shouldn't be incredibly patient, but they're leading the league in walks.

Look up two posts.

[chitowngui]

The Cards made Jeff Weaver and Anthony Reyes look like Cy Young in the World Series.. I'm not suprised.

 

 

 

3. Starting pitchers. Wainwright is coming into his own and is a solid #2, but the rest? Kyle Lohse is Kyle Lohse. He gave up 22 HR but has given up ONE this season. That won't last. Opposing players are slugging only .364 against him, but they've been around .450 in previous years. The power numbers will improve against him, the low BABIP will come up, and he'll be back to being Kyle Lohse.

 

Braden Looper - 22 HR allowed last year, 2 this year. Same thing with him, the low power numbers and low BABIP are anomalies and will even out.

 

Todd Wellemeyer - again, low BABIP, and his walk rate will end up hurting him. He's a decent back of the rotation option, not a solid #3.

[Keener98]

Well looks like Mark Mulder may not be in Stl as quick as expected.

 

Cardinals lefty Mark Mulder is on his way to St. Louis — not to throw a bullpen or workout at the facilities at Busch Stadium, but to meet with the team’s doctor about his twice surgically repaired left shoulder.

 

Manager Tony La Russa said in the debriefing of Mulder’s rehab start Monday night in Memphis it mentioned the lefty “felt some shoulder fatigue.” Mulder will meet with Dr. George Paletta on Wednesday morning to get a look at how his shoulder is after his fifth rehab start.

 

Mulder is scheduled to start Saturday in Tucson for Triple-A Memphis.

 

Asked if Mulder’s meeting with the doctor signals that his next start could be in jeopardy, La Russa said: “I would say so.”

 

 

http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/bird-land/bird-land/2008/05/mulders-next-start-uncertain/

[wekse]

i'm actually holding out hope that mulder is fine and they slide him into the rotation, cause he's terrible.