Little Slide Rooter

Going by Gameday, it would appear as though that pitch took Reed Johnsons head off.

I dont care what the numbers say, Soto should not be batting behind Johnson and Barney.

His start was a one and done and they made that clear from the get go. He said it himself I believe. The only thing that would have kept him up was another SP needing to be DLd.

Are they just going to ignore the fact that Scott Maine's been really good this season? Braddock would be a decent buy low candidate, but Mike Gonzalez is just another 30 year old on the tail end of his career. Scott Maine's been really good for a month out of the bullpen. That means virtually nothing. It means that if we need another lefty for the pen we should call him up instead of a 34 year old retread.

Are they just going to ignore the fact that Scott Maine's been really good this season? Braddock would be a decent buy low candidate, but Mike Gonzalez is just another 30 year old on the tail end of his career.

As I recall, his main issue with the Brewers stemmed from some kind of sleep disorder.

wtf We probably shouldn't tell him that Kosuke Fukudome is their right fielder.

Let's not forget that at the end of each season, for every game that you lose because of a blown save, lack of clutch hitting, defensive miscues or what have you, chances are that there was a game that you won due to the other team suffering similar misfortune.

I'd love to go with Hamels. I really don't see reason to believe that they won't spend big money anytime soon, however if they don't then in addition to Garza I'd go with Marcum, Sanchez, or McCarthy. As for the bat, that's another story. People don't want to spend in Ethier or Upton. Delmon Young would be cheaper but he's not as good and he's a sociopat who might not handle a big market and it's fans too well. Swisher's the type of bat that I you have a good 3-4 or 3-5 he'd be a great addition but not a guy who will make a BA offense good. Most peope don't seem willing to entertain the idea of LaHair in left either. Not sure what other options are out there.

Those that he had in place were pretty important pieces, and he filled out his roster seemingly taking a page from Billy Beane. And lets not forget that 2 months after landing the GM job he added David Ortiz for next to nothing, and I doubt that even Theo expected that he'd become what he did, and that's not the type of move that can be easily be replicated.

If my aunt had a pair, she of course would be my uncle. I don't understand this line of thought, who's to say that the replacement for Marmol would have converted all those opportunities? Many teams in fact, can point out that a slightly different outcome here or there would give them 3-4 extra wins at this point in the season. not all that unreasonable to expect better than 2/5 saves converted especially when at least one of those blown ones was of the 3 run variety edit - and i guess dolis actually got "credit" for that one, but yea. Every team is going to have their share of blown saves, so it's not realistic to chalk each one up as a game we should have won. However, the Wood-Marmol connection was especially bad early on. i didn't realize that saying "just think".... if we had actually managed to save a reasonable 5/5 games instead of 2/5 - one of which involved a 3 run 9th inning lead - we'd be .500 instead of 11-17 constituted chalking up more wins every team is going to have blown saves... doesn't change the fact that converting all of a small sample like 5, especially given some of the circumstances involving them, isn't an unreasonable expectation. and i'm pretty sure a 40% (or is it 50?) conversion percentage isn't all that realistic to project over the long haul, either. Not disagreeing. Also, it's more frustrating when most of those saves we're blown largely as a result of excessive BBs.

Apparently, that's a good thing as with cartilage a break heals quicker than a strain.

I wonder if he'll start and if so at 2nd or 3rd.

Not a shock that he's playing well. More so that he remains healthy and the Cards got him for a steal.

If my aunt had a pair, she of course would be my uncle. I don't understand this line of thought, who's to say that the replacement for Marmol would have converted all those opportunities? Many teams in fact, can point out that a slightly different outcome here or there would give them 3-4 extra wins at this point in the season. not all that unreasonable to expect better than 2/5 saves converted especially when at least one of those blown ones was of the 3 run variety edit - and i guess dolis actually got "credit" for that one, but yea. Every team is going to have their share of blown saves, so it's not realistic to chalk each one up as a game we should have won. However, the Wood-Marmol connection was especially bad early on.

That was my first though as well. It makes me feel a little better than Stewart should see some improvement based on BABIP. Likewise, Freese should regress but of course there are no guarantees. Cardinals have a lot of guys who share the middle name [expletive]. No Pujols or Carpenter, Wainwright hasn't been very good and Holliday hasn't got going yet, but who cares when you have David [expletive] Freese, Jon [expletive] Jay, Kyle [expletive] Lohse, Jake [expletive] Westbrook, Carlos [expletive] Beltran, Lance [expletive] Lynn, Yadier [expletive] Molina, and Rafael [expletive] Furcal.

Agreed, although even if he does remain consistent, I don't know how much we can expect back for him.

Sean Camp has been by our most serviceable right handed reliever. No reason to railroad him out of town for no reason other than the fact that he's old and uninteresting. In sure someone will take that to mean my undying love for him, but I'm just saying that as long as the majority if our pen can't seem to throw strikes we should hang on to the guy that can.

The AL East standings are completely upside-down. Speaking of surprsing eastern teams, I was looking at the Nats offesnive stats and wondering how the hell they're so good. Than I saw tbhat their worst starting pitcher has a 3.69 ERA and a 1.11 WHIP, 2nd worst is 2.29/0.99 and the rest are all <2.00/<1.00, and that will do it. How long they can keep that up remains to be seen. As for the O's: Wieters .301/.381/.602 Jones .304/.350/.591 Davis .299/.343/.526 Reimold (recentkly DLd) .313/.333/.627 They have 3 regular relievers with ERAs of 0.00 and <1.00 WHIP, a 4th who's not too far behind, Jason Hammel finally looks like a CY Young candidate, and Chinese import Wei-Yin Chen, who I believe we were looking at at one point has been very good as well. Again, remains to be seen how long they can keep it up.

I completely forgot that Chris Coghlan existed. Talk about falling off a cliff.

I don't know how Cespedes 4/36 contract will end up looking in the long run, but the 3/21 contract to Josh Willingham is looking pretty good. He's at .305/.418/.598 thus far. He might not keep up that pace, but he's pretty much always been a mid .800s OPS guy and his D is pretty much on par with Sorianos. How is that relevant to the Cubs in any way? The point of bringing up Cespedes was that we need another legit power threat. Willingham is a legit power threat. Theo/Jed opted not to spend big money this offseason and opted to go bargain hunting instead. The Twins got a nice bargain on Willingham.

Certainly doesn't feel like a sub .400 team, but we are only 6 back in the division, and we could be less if it weren't for an overperforming Cardinals team. The NL Central looks as bad ad it did in '07. There is an extra playoff spot and no NL team that strikes me as dominant. Stop blowing saves and stop starting Chris Volstad, and we could have something. The downside is that we've had 2 guys carrying out offense, one of whom is largely expected to fall off a cliff, so if more guys would start hitting consistently that would help too.

I'm also mildly interested in the decision to keep Lake at SS rather than give him a shot at 2nd or 3rd.

I don't know how Cespedes 4/36 contract will end up looking in the long run, but the 3/21 contract to Josh Willingham is looking pretty good. He's at .305/.418/.598 thus far. He might not keep up that pace, but he's pretty much always been a mid .800s OPS guy and his D is pretty much on par with Sorianos.

If we don't win this here, that will be too bad.