jjgman21

Could it have anything to do with gaining two hours when they get west? While it does not make it any better perhaps that had something to do with their reasoning behind this. the time difference doesn't change the fact that the Cubs will get to their hotel at about 3 a.m. SF time.

Isnt this the home teams decision on when the start of game is? no, the league makes the schedule including start times and they make small adjustments along the way. times often change for national broadcasts too, but I think the league has veto power. you may be thinking about the home team has the decision of whether or not to start a game if there is rain.

why on earth is this a night game? I've never seen a team make a trip to the west coast without a day off before or after the trip (or both). the schedule makers in their infinite wisdom give the Cubs 4 cities in nine days, with a trip to SF tossed in there, to begin a 17 game stretch without an offday. the least they could do was make this a day game for travel.

to sit there and imply that LaRussa doesn't do it more than most is drinking the Cardinal coolaid. you want to talk about slow curveballs, let's talk about some of Wood's slow curves that have glanced off of various Cardinals, only to see a Cardinal pitcher bean a Cub later in the game or the next game. not everybody does it, and even if they did it makes it no less bush. to be honest, I wish the Cubs retaliated more. I'm enraged that noone has drilled Carlos Lee in the ribs for the kick to Walker's knee that put him out for 6 weeks. noone has thrown at any Pirate after Mesa went hunting Hairston's head earlier in the season either. it also is not the way the game should be. the way the game should be is you get knocked on your butt, you get up, dust yourself off, and take vengence with the stick, not the ball. if the pitch that knocked you on your butt hits you, then its retaliation time. no sooner, but that's not the way LaRussa plays it, and you know it. LaRussa retaliates for many little things that have nothing to do with the intent of the opposition. the dividing line of bush is not whether the pitch is at someone's head. the only "right way" is when you have been wronged in some way by the opposition. LaRussa is bush because his team's retaliation comes when the opposition did nothing intentional. none of the above described acts by other teams warranted a beaning by a Cards pitcher. beanings are part of the game, beanball wars are not, and beanball wars are exactly what Mr. Bushleague keeps inciting. an example. Pujols hits a homerun and admires it, as always. the next time up he's planted on his butt by some chin music. what's the proper response? the proper response is no response, but that's not the way LaRussa plays it, now is it.

I refuse to let Prior off the hook for being partially reponsible for this loss. he pitched well, as he almost always does, but there's more to winning the ballgame than pitching well for six innings. because of his infatuation with the strikeout, once again over 100 pitches before he reaches the seventh inning. I don't know of any pitcher in baseball (besides Kerry Wood) who consistently surrenders so few hits but has to leave the game at the end of six because of his pitch count. 100 pitches should get your team through 8 innings 9 out of 10 times. it gets Prior to the eighth 1 out of 10 times. groundout, popout, flyout = strikeout. with the bullpen in the state its in and has been all year, its about time Prior starts pitching to some contact and working deeper into games instead of worrying about his K totals.

just for kicks I did a simple internet search for "cardinals warned both benches" here's some games I found with blatant acts of retaliation by the Cardinals, this year alone. http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=250409124 (beaning of Burrell for either his productive game, JRolls steal, or an earlier beaning) http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=250522107 (beaning of Berroa for either his productive game or the earlier beaning of Pujols + two beaning by Lima the day before http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=250607124 (beanball war with BoSox) http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=250613114 (Hillebrand beaned for having audacity to hit a HR) http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/recap?gameId=250802124 (Carpenter beans Gonzalez for two earlier beanings by Willis -- to lead off the game) that's at least five, and the beaning of Lawton in the 10th in the "you're stealing signs" game was in all probability a purpose beaning too. in addition, the same search revealed nasty beanball wars between the Cubs, Pirates, Brewers and White Sox over the past few years as well. the balls in your court wolf. find any team or manager that even comes close.

Tony does complain in the press more than I like, but I would be interested to see if you have any actual evidence to prove he retaliates more than anybody. I understand that it is magnified to you because he is your hated rival, but how about trying to have an actual point to your posts instead of just making things up. oh, that's right. I forgot all about the rule here that you can't write anything unless it can be independently verified with scientific evidence. I'll create a program and enter all the boxscores to determine the timing of all HBP in Cardinal games over the past years compared to other teams and managers. I'll break into MLB headquarters to get all the umpire reports to determine how many times warnings have been issued to managers for beanballs. then I'll google "baseball retaliation" and read all newspaper accounts about alleged retaliation, and to complete my study, I will give LaRussa a lie detector about every HBP his pitchers have thrown in his managerial career. how about this...from my observations, his team retaliates more than any other. the point of this post is that your criticism is more twiticism. save it for your "you can't prove McGwire was on steroids" posts.

but I will concede... which begs the question, if McClendon conceded that it was a clean play, why was Mr. and Mrs. Bushleague crying foul about retaliation when White threw a pitch up and in to Luna? Mr. Bushleague is the master of playing dirty, then accusing the other side of dirty play. always crying 'retaliation' when he retaliates more than anybody.

I'm looking at his splits right now, and it says he does well after 0-2 and 1-2, but its difficult to glean much from the splits. the problem I have with him is insisting on striking batters out when ahead instead of inducing a weakly hit ball. when he has them 0-2 and 1-2 he needs 5 more pitches to get them out and ends up leaving the game in the sixth inning. but my memory concurs. Prior, and the entire Cubs staff as a whole, has given up a lot of big hits when ahead in the count.

nice selective memory there Amy "A lot of stuff happened last night. I had to stick up for my team, get the warning out early." I believe what you may be remembering is the fact that Morris had so little control that game he couldn't have hit a batter if he tried. and keep in mind, he threw behind Patterson twice in the same at bat. 53 to 48. quite the discrepency. considering that the Cards staff from top to bottom is a control staff that pitches to contact, 48 actually seems a little hight to me. I think gus said something about the Cubs bringing it on themselves for being so whiny last year. I agree to an extent, but have to wonder when the umps are going to start giving Edmonds the strikezone Alou got last year, and when they are going to get fed up with LaRussa's whining and start giving the Cards the same treatment the Cubs got last year. no other manager and pitching coach is allowed to argue balls and strikes from the dugout. why can LaRussa actually come out of the dugout to do so and not get ejected? bottom line is, LaRussa is about as bush as it gets. he's a petulant little baby. fact is, the Cards pitching staff wouldn't have close to 48 hbp if not for their constant retaliation, even when their batters getting hit is clearly unintentional. LaRussa prides himself on having a team that steals signs, then raises a big fuss when other teams do it. he whines that his all-stars won't be well rested to watch the HR derby. he's a great advocate for his team, I'll give him that, but he's so lacking in integrity I don't know how anyone can stand him. one last thing. some Card fan called it a clean slide. put down the coolaid. highly debatable, and most likely a crock of hooey.

no offense, but I'm to the point now where I think no strike out by Mark Prior is beautiful. he will never return to the dominant pitcher we saw two years ago if he doesn't start pitching to some contact and stop pitching the count full after getting ahead early. his infatuation with striking guys out is absurd. on pace to yet again not make it into the seventh.

so here we are about three weeks after I made this post. let's look and see what the Cards have been doing with Carpenter 8/19 5-4, 8+, 94 - a low pitch count game. LaRussa runs Carpenter out in the ninth trailing 0-2 and he gives up two more. 8/24 8-3, 8.0, 96 - a low pitch count game. the Cards put up a five spot in the top of the first and have a 6-2 lead going into the seventh. LaRussa leaves Carpenter in in another blow out. 8/29 6-1, 7.2, 94 - average pitch count for the point in the game. the Cards go into the bottom of the fifth with a 6-1 lead, but Carpenter is left in until he goes nearly 8. LaRussa chooses to use his two best right handers, Tavarez and Isringhausen, to mop up the final four outs with a five run lead. 9/3 4-2, 9, 120 - high pitch count in a duel between Clemens and Carpenter. Clemens is gone after 5 and the Cards take a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the seventh. LaRussa sticks with Carpenter to finish the game. I did some research on this after this debate, and the Card fans who said this is what LaRussa always has done were absolutely correct. LaRussa has kept the peddle down throughout the regular season. with his history of failure in the post season, you'd think he would learn his lesson. let's do a cursory review 1983 White Sox - the White Sox clinch their division earlier than any other team in baseball history. Lamar Hoyt, Richard Dotson, and Floyd Bannister are leaned on heavily, 261, 241, 217 innings respectively. Bannister gives up 4 in six innings in game two, Bannister is shelled in game three. the White Sox bow out of the playoffs to the O's. 1988 A's - the A's win the division by 13 games. Sterart 275, Welch 244, Davis 202. LaRussa refuses to go to a four man rotation in the post season. the World Series is dominated by the Dodgers pitching. Davis gives up six in game two. and Stewart gives up four in seven innings. Davis gives up four runs in four innings in the clinching game 5. the A's lose the World Series. 1989 A's - the A's win their division by 7 games. LaRussa eases up a little on his starters. Stewart 258, Moore 242, Welch 210, Davis 169. he goes with a four man rotation in the playoffs, and only needs two starters in the WS because of the earthquake. A's win it all 1990 A's - the A's win their division by 9 games. Stewart 267, Welch 238, Sanderson 206, Moore 199. the A's pitching dominates the playoffs giving up only 4 runs to the RedSox, but LaRussa is back to a three man rotation. Stewart and Moor get shelled in games 1 and 3. A's are swept in the WS. 1996 Cards - they win a woeful Central by six games. Benes 230, Stottleyer 223, Benes 191, Osborne 199. Again he goes with a three man rotation in the playoffs. Cards sweep in the first round and lose the Championship series, including losses of 14-0 and 15-0 after taking a 3-1 lead in the series. 2000 Cards - Cards win division by 10 games. Kile 232, Hentgen 194, Stephenson 200. Cards sweep the Braves in the division series, mostly due to their offence, but neither Ankiel or Stephenson stay in the game long enough to get a W. Ankiel melts down and both Hentgen and Kile get shelled in a 4-1 series loss. 2001 Cards - Cards win WC by two games over the Giants. Kile 227, Morris 216. the Cards lose in the divisional playoffs. Morris and Kile hold up ok. too much Schilling-Johnson for the Cards to handle. 2002 Cards - Cards win the division by 13 games. Morris 210, Williams 220, Finley 185. Cards win divisional with a good start from Morris and great bullpen work in the other two games (Finley goes six and pitches well, Benes pitches into the fifth. Morris is shelled in game one of the Championship series, Finley is roughted up in his start. Cards lose series 4-1. 2004 Cards - Cards blow out the division, but LaRussa refuses to use a sixth starter until Carpenter gets nerve damage in his arm. they walk through the Dodgers. they have alot of trouble with an inferior Astros team and win a seven game series in which a Cards starter makes it into the seventh only once. in the WS, the Cards starters ERAs/IP Marquis 3.86/7.0 Suppan 7.71/4.2 Morris 8.31/4.1 Williams 27.00/2.1 year after year LaRussa has teams that blowout their division, he refuses to rest his starters, and his starters fail him in the post season. he's one of the best regular season managers in history, but pretty much chokes his shot at the big prize year after year, despite having superior teams to those he faces almost every year. Maybe, just maybe if he saved them a few innings here and there throughout the regular season LaRussa wouldn't contiually see his starters get shelled in the post season. Cub fans all saw it in 03 with Prior, Wood and Z, but the Cubs needed nearly every game to make the playoffs. LaRussa's teams have been in that position only once. you'd think he would learn his lesson, and you would think all Card fans would stop supporting some of his stupid philosphies, such as needlessly pushing his starters in the regular season.

how is Eckstein not overachieving? already a career high in walks and likely to set his career high in extra base hits. OPS up 70 points from last year, and 90 from the year before. Walker really doesn't seem like an underachievement even with the caveat for injuries. the same argument made about Edmonds applies to him. and we are talking about Larry Walker here. he's Mr. Injury. he'll end up playing in more games for the Cards than he played in 2004. only a Card fan would consider a guy with better numbers than his career averages as an underachiever. the only reason King seems that way is because he was out of his mind last year. what does he need? a 2.00 ERA to satisfy you? only a Card fan would look a gift horse in the mouth like K-town does with Reyes. you know what Reyes has done the past two or three years? hung around the minor leagues and waited for a few mop up shots in September. so what if he made the most of them. there was a reason he was in the minors until September. Rodriquez is another gift horse you're looking into the mouth of. who will have the .811 OPS season, the guy with all the tools and the talent patrolling center for the Cubs, or the career minor leaguer the cards dusted off the scrap heap? but back to the bullpen because you seem to have forgotten a few Isringhausen - career best ERA by well over a run Tavarez - 1.5 runs below his career ERA Flores - career minor leaguer keeping his ERA well below league average (another gift horse you guys look into the mouth of) Thompson - far outperforming any expectations. Eldred - small sample size, but 2.5 runs better than career ERA

just checked the boxscore at work and am compelled to write something here. I know he's a stud, everybody's hero, perfect mechanics, sufferer of fluke injuries, blah blah blah...but Mark Prior has got to break off this love affair with the strikeout and start pitching to some contact. this is a pitcher who everyone claims has great control, yet he keeps putting up pitch counts that are completely incongruous to his innings pitched. he goes 0-2 to 3-2 faster than I go from birdie to bogey on the golf course. an out is an out, and Mark needs to start getting more of them with fewer pitches. its reached the point of absurdity. game after game the guy can't make it out of the sixth inning.

So what do you suggest? You think the Cards should shut down a perfectly healthy pitcher for the rest of the season? The Cards are making a point to give ALL of their starters an extra day off here and there (as I've already explained). After September call-ups, they'll probably get even MORE rest. As for the Kerry Wood comparison, I think that most experts agree that his mechanics are horrible, and that's why he's hurt all the time. To my knowledge, Carpenter's mechanics are very good, so I'm not sure that I'd be overly worried. the time for suggestion has long since passed, and that's the point. LaRussa blew the chance to save his arm for the stretch run. I don't see how the starters have gotten extra days rest when only one start has been made from someone not on the five man. don't forget too that they went with a four man for the first couple weeks of the season. I personally don't think going to a six man rotation is the greatest idea ever either. as for the Kerry Wood comparison, assuming what you say is true, shouldn't you be concerned that someone with "very good" mechanics seems to get injured all the time, especially since those are arm injuries and not fluke injuries (ala Prior). Player A - bad mechanics, injury history, injury cause can be corrected; Player B - very good mechanics, injury history, what can be done to predict and prevent injuries?

I'm just not sure what you mean by Womackesque mistake. the Cards brought him in for a year, not surprisingly he had a career year, and the Cards let him go. are you talking about the Yankees when you refer to him as a mistake?

Marquis has been abused. I won't argue with that. It's a struggle just for him to get thru 6 innings, because he's constantly in and out of jams. Carpenter hasn't been abused. He's just been good. Carpenter is simply mowing hitters down late in games (.416 OPS against in innings 7 thru 9 is simply incredible). If a pitcher has thrown 90 pitches in the 8th inning, and is dominating, and isn't the least bit tired, then why would you pull him out? What's the value in leaving him in? So he can pile up on the CG stat? No, to get the opponent out. Isn't that the idea? :roll: As I told you, he has a .416 OPS against in innings 7 thru 9. no, the idea is to win the World Series, and your manager is hurting your chances of doing so.

Marquis has been abused. I won't argue with that. It's a struggle just for him to get thru 6 innings, because he's constantly in and out of jams. Carpenter hasn't been abused. He's just been good. Carpenter is simply mowing hitters down late in games (.416 OPS against in innings 7 thru 9 is simply incredible). If a pitcher has thrown 90 pitches in the 8th inning, and is dominating, and isn't the least bit tired, then why would you pull him out? What's the value in leaving him in? So he can pile up on the CG stat? exactly. just look at some of the scores of the games (and some of the competition the Cards were facing in those games) and try to tell me there was any value whatsoever in leaving him in. arguments for pulling Carpenter in some of those games: after his next start, he will have surpassed all but one other season in IP he's about 2.5 years removed from reconstructive surgery the Cards have a decent pen that could nail down most if not all of those games the Cards locked up the division in June the Cards starting pitching wore down in the post season last year and steps could be taken to prevent that from happening again just because he's not tired in the 8th inning of any given game doesn't detract from the cumulative effects of throwing 106 pitches per start for a season, and he had arm problems late last year, possibly due to being left in too long in many meaningless games. as for the cause and effect argument above, I don't think the extra 20 or so innings LaRussa should have saved from Carpenters arm would have killed the Cards pen, particular since so many of those innings would have been in blowouts arguments for leaving him in: LaRussa doesn't leave him in just to accumulate innings the Cards pen wouldn't have been as good if he were left in he was pitching well kudos to indifferent for not being indifferent to this problem LaRussa is creating for himself.

this is exactly what I figured the response would be. there seems to be alot of Card fans who refuse to question anything Larussa does or says, no matter how stupid. ok, so LaRussa wasn't leaving him in to accumulate innings. so exactly why was LaRussa leaving him in blowout games? because all the games listed above were critical games the Cardinals had to have? with the way the Cards pen has performed, why did he leave him in some of those 2-3 run ballgames? was the first game of the series at Busch with the Cubs on a 100 degree night really so important for the Cards to win, or would the better decision be to see if the pen could match Z and give Carpenter a few batters off? and the last series against the Cubs, with the way the Cubs offense was struggling, was it really necessary to keep him in after the Cards took a three run lead in the seventh? was that game critical, or was that a good opportunity to save a little wear and tear? as for Z, I don't think there is a Cubs fan on this board who doesn't hate the way Dusty handles his pitchers. although I didn't like it, like mentioned above, the circumstances are completely different. every game is critical for the Cubs right now, therefore you may have to push your starters a little harder. my comments had nothing to do with Baker. why can't there ever be a discussion about LaRussa without the Card fan saying "well what about Baker." nobody likes Baker and everyone questions everything he does already. he's an idiot. why is so hard for so many Card fans to admit that so many of the things LaRussa does and says are completely idiotic?

Injuries are a part of the game and the team just has to over come them. Moreover, the Cardinals have had their share of pitching injuries over the years. If you remember the 2003 seaon, the Cards had such great pitches as Estaban Yan, Jason Simontachi, Pedro Borbon, Brett Tomko, and Dustin Hermannson in their rotation due to injuries and the death of DK. So the Cubs are not in a position that the Cardinals have not faced in the recent years. Lastly, the Cardinals lost their ace last year right before the playoffs. And Matty Mo and Woody were both playing thru injuries in the playoffs. aaawwwww. let's all weep because the Cardinals had one year where crap players didn't perform out of their minds, and way out of their career norms, for the Cardinals. what about Sterling Hitchcock in 2003? the Cards had all of 9 pitchers start games for them that year. the only complaint you could possibly have about 2003 is the buckets of flan Jocketty accumulated in the bullpen didn't all have career years like the Cards pen the past two years. as for the bolded part above, if LaRussa keeps running him out there to unnecesarily accumulate innings, you very well may see that again. final score, IP, pitch counts for Carpenter over the past two months 7-0, 9, 95 6-1, 8, 109 8-0, 9, 103 6-0, 8.2, 112 2-1, 8.0, 112 3-0, 9.0, 114 2-1, 9, 106 11-3, 7, 109 3-1, 9, 109 5-3, 8, 113 5-2, 9, 109 all with the Cards holding double digit lead in the division, all with the Cards having the least used bullpen in all of baseball. hey, let's run a guy who had reconstructive surgery two years ago out for 250 innings. if I were a Cardinal fan, my feathers would be ruffled. WS > Cy Young.

I agree with Santo 100%. in fact, I think Maddux suffers some backlash. there are times when he's actually hitting the corner and not getting the call. many times this year the game slipped away from the Cubs because the ump would not raise the right arm to call strike three and end an inning. I believe many who saw those games would agree, that it wasn't always Maddux strikes he was missing out on, many times they were regular old American made strikes. in fact, going back to the last homestand of last year, Maddux faced some crappy rookie pitcher from the Reds who shut us down by getting the Maddux strike, while Maddux was not. while of course there is no way of knowing, I bet if Maddux were off the record, he would attest to a completely different strikezone since changing uniforms.

welcome to our world. the difference of course is yet another crappy utility player is having a stellar year for the Cardinals

or maybe instead of being up late boozing, Edmonds is up late with him..... nevermind. just one of the rare occassions I miss the old board.

don't get me wrong. I would love to see some more guys on base, but I don't know that anyone is walking against Oswalt tonight. especially with some of the strike one calls he got. seemed every batter was 0-2 and did well just to battle deeper into the count. I bet Oswalt didn't go 2-0 on more than three batters all game.

bump. please observe the game instead of using the boxscore to assess how Glendon Rusch has pitched. Yeah, 10 hits and 5 runs in 3+ innings certainly isn't Glendon's fault. I want results! what part about "please observe the game instead of using the boxscore to assess how Glendon Rusch has pitched" did you not understand? He pitched poorly. Poor control, then left a hanger up to some bum. I don't know how many people will believe that 5 runs in 3 2/3 innings is anything but a horrible pitching performance. ya know, I'm not pleased with the results or apologizing for the Cubs, especially after the events that have transpired since I started writing this, but call a spade a spade here. people were talking about him like he pitched like Wellemeyer was. I'm disappointed too, but don't let it cloud your observational abilities. those that recoginze luck is a huge part of this game could recognize that it wasn't really a horrible pitching performance. ok fine. I have to go through each damn AB to make the point here don't I. first inning Tavarez - seeing eye hit Biggio - seeing eye hit Berkman - hard hit ball, GIDP Ensberg - seeing eye infield hit Lane - five hopper up the middle Everrett - bloop hit to right. Burke - FO to center. in all honesty, I wasn't in the room and didn't see it. 5 fluke hits, 2 runs second inning catcher - k pitcher - k Tavarez - bail out swing single to center Biggio - hard hit ball to Rusch third inning Berkman - bloop hit Ensberg - single to center on a very good pitch Lane - K Everett - pop up Burke - bad pitch, hanging curve flied for a HR. not a HR in 27 or 30 ML parks catcher - K 1 hard hit ball, 1 ok hit ball, 1 fluke hit, 3 runs fourth inning pitcher - pop up Taverez - chopper off the plate Biggio - walk AT THIS POINT EVERYONE WATCHING KNOWS HE'S GASSED AND SHOULD BE OUT OF THE GAME Ensberg - liner to the wall Ensberg - walk 1 hard hit ball, 1 fluke hit, 2 walks. as for missing badly, 92 pitches, 61 strikes