Aaron_Kennelly

Oh let's do this!

The horror.

Probably a bit of an overreaction.

Crap

It's an epidemic.

Nice.

Please, no Richard.

Attaboy, Albert.

Good horsefeathers, Hammel.

Great tag by Zobrist, too. Not quite Baez-like. And he probably got lucky. But I'll take it.

Hell of a play.

He's out!

I hope Dusty lets him throw 130 pitches and go 9.

Very good. And efficient, which has been more of a problem for him.

Yea, pretty much.

Please tell me you are joking. I think you are but it's hard to tell...

Also, we did go through our bad streak, which "every team will go through." We went through a 4-8 stretch -- pretty bad for a .700 team. And they have gone through their good streak. They just won 5 in a row to finally bring them above 3-games over .500. And yet... still 9.5 out. So even by speaking in cliches, he is still incredibly wrong.

If we are just looking at the "toughest part of our schedule" that he mentions, we'll throw out all the junk and any pretenders. That leaves us the Mets, Nationals, Dodgers, Giants, Pirates and each other. (We've both only played one full interleague series, each against the Angels, though they've also played one game against the Astros.) We are currently playing our 26th game against those teams. They've played 28. They are 11-17 in those games. We are 18-7.

Everything about that is fantastic. I'm actually thrilled that they now have hope again. Just so we can clench it from them again and make the pain even more severe.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/professional/carpenter-entrenched-at-leadoff-for-cardinals/article_fd6056b4-f052-51aa-8b87-672ca70e05ce.html

The main reason I'm coming off is that he appears to be playing through injury and I'm not sure it's going to get better. He has both bitched before about reduced playing time and has shown a willingness/desire to rush back from injuries last year, and I'm thinking that's what's going on. Doesn't want to lose his job...can't blame him. But if that's the case and he's going to play like this, might as well start getting Willson in the mix. True. And if he is injured and this what we can expect from Injured Miggy, then I'll retract evertyhing I just said. If he is injured, he needs to be on the DL and we can let Contreras handle things for awhile. I think a healthy Miggy can still be very effective, though.

For the record, I'm still Team Miggy. I might go down with this ship on this one. But, I'm Team Miggy for the foreseeable future, at least until I see something that irrefutably proves me wrong. But, I'm going to need several hundred more PAs to jump ship. There's a lot of underlying stuff below the surface that makes me think he's been a little unlucky. For one, he's making way more contact than he was last year. He's also shown a great eye -- even better than he's ever been, despite always being discerning. I think his offensive line will come around and that he's on the verge of a little mini-breakout to correct things there. Also, he's really, really good at pitch framing. So much so that I don't worry too much about anything else. It's so valuable for this team and this pitching staff. And with how good the staff is, I am not too worried about giving up extra bases, anyway. It's a problem, sure. But, it's almost like, "Sure, you can have the extra base. The next two guys are getting out anyway." It's an issue that is mitigated some by having elite pitching. That being said, I won't make excuses for his arm or the other extra bases he gives up. His arm is embarrassing right now. The extra bases are inexcusable. It's definitely a problem. And it absolutely has to get better. It just has to. He can't keep throwing out base runners at a single-digit clip. And he needs to start doing the other catching stuff better, too. I don't think it can get worse, though. Hopefully? So I think he probably improves in this regard, too. Long story short, Miggy'll get better. And I'm still aboard the Miggy Train, despite being a huge Contreras fan that is eagerly anticipating him joining the team at some point.

What in the hell?

Please, spare me that song when we are on the road.

Not sure I understand that...