What About a Four Man Rotation?

Brad Thompson getting suspended, while Guillermo Mota walks free, is an absolute farce. Hitting a guy up by 13 to protect your hitter is OK, but buzzing a guy up by 7 to protect your hitter isn't? Mota threw with intent, Thompson didn't.

Anyway, on one of the recent United Cardinal Bloggers Radio Hour shows, Pip from Fungoes raised the question of LaRussa going with a 4-man rotation. After all, Todd Wellemeyer, Brad Thompson, and Mitchell Boggs haven't exactly lit up the scoreboard. Well they have lit it up, just the wrong way - 10-15, 5+ ERA. Why not just skip that spot in the rotation?

This idea intrigued me.

Starting tomorrow, the Cardinals have 59 games left. With a 5-man rotation, that's 12 starts each for the first 4, and 11 for the #5 slot. With a 4-man rotation, that's 15 starts each for Carpenter, Wainwright, and Piniero, and 14 for Lohse.

There are a number of off-days between now and the end of the season - 6 to be exact. If they line up right, then the Cardinals could skip 6 starts by the #5 guy. This is good, right?

Well, it's not that good. The off days don't line up exactly like one would want:

6 Aug - Off day
6 games
13 Aug - Off day
10 games
24 Aug - Off day
6 games
31 Aug - Off day
9 games
10 Sept - Off day
6 games
17 Sept - Off day
6 games
24 Sept - Off day
10 games
End regular season.

CC Sabathia threw his last 4 games in 2008 on 3-days rest. Not everyone is CC Sabathia. I definitely don't think the Cardinals will try and pitch Carpenter on 3 days rest, given his medical history. I doubt they'll take that chance/accept that risk with Wainwright or Piniero.

So, if they try to keep them all on 4 days rest, the off-days don't help, and they'll have to use a #5 starter 9 times.

So LaRussa would save himself two starts from Wellemeyer's replacement.

Doesn't sound like its worth it. I like the idea of going with a rotation of Carpenter, Wainwright, Piniero, and Lohse, but it won't work in practice. Sorry, Pip.

Cards sink Mets; UCB Radio Hour Reprise

Just who exactly has inhabited Joel Piniero's body, and what can we do to make the change permanent?

Eight efficient innings, 91 pitches thrown, 13 batters retired before David Wright's double leading off the ninth; he's also drawing walks and scoring runs. Yes, put me down as a big fan of the improvement.

And, he leads the NL in wins with 3. Nice to see he's earning the cash the team is paying him, becuase we sorely need him to be good right now.

Piniero's start ended a string of bad starts by the Cardinals staff. He is the only one with a quality start this time through the order, and the only one to make it to the seventh inning.

Coupled with Chicago's loss, St Louis starts the day back in first place by a game at 11-5. They go for the sweep of the Amazin's today.

I mentioned on last night's show today should seem a little more cheerful with the Cardinals back on top of the division. Which is a nice segue to the show. I hosted the UCB talk radio hour for the first time last night; and although I am an obviously biased reporter, I thought it went well. Other than the fact that I had some technical issues and couldn't get the chat board to show up on my computer.

We had Dr. Doug Feldmann on the show for the first 10 minutes, discussing his new book, St Louis Cardinals - Past and Present. It is a coffee table book, heavy on pictures, describing the rich history of our favorite franchise. Dr. Feldmann was a gracious guest, answering questions on his book, some of his other books, and a wide range of other topics. Turns out Dr. Feldmann is from the Chicago area, but saw the light at an early age regarding the Cubs/Cardinals. He can be forgiven for being a bit of a White Sox fan, as (I believe it was his uncle, although my memory escapes me) played in the White Sox organization for a time. Thank you, Dr. Feldmann, for dialing in.

Last night's game ended right about the time Doug left, and Josh from Redbirds Row called in, Josh and I spent the next 45 minutes or so talking about the game, as well as Blaine Boyer, Ludwick's playing time, Khalil Greene, what's wrong with Rick Ankiel, and other topics of interest. Thanks to Josh for dialing in. Josh didn't have the technical issues I had with chat, so we were able to get to questions posted there by our on-line listeners.

I believe the broadcast is available for download, and if I ever figure out how to post those audio files here it will go up. But, since it was the first time I had hosted a show in 20 years (back to my college radio days), it's definitely one for the books for me.

The Ben Sheets Question

I keep hoping my schedule will clear up enough to take a detailed look at Ben Sheets (statistics, win share, injury history, recommended value), but it never seems to. I will continue to hope, but we'll see.

I was enjoying my morning coffee (mmmmmm hot) to take the chill out of my bones (it was FORTY EIGHT DEGREES this morning! My GOD that's cold!) and surfing around the Cardinal web. Something C70 said today caught my eye:

"Ben Sheets apparently wants a guaranteed contract. Of course, we can't always get what we want, as some obscure rock group sang. That said, if he'd go with an $7-8
million guarantee with some incentive clauses built in, I still think it makes sense for the Cardinals. Even if he goes down, the odds of getting their money back on the contract are pretty high."

$7 to 8 Mil for Sheets? That would be a pay cut; he hasn't been paid that little since 2005 (you'll have to scroll down to find Sheets, the link is in alphabetical order). Even given the current state of the economy, and the slow free agent market we've experienced this off-season (101 free agents still out there, some really good players with out a home yet), I'm not sure Sheets would be happy taking that little.

Then again, I'd be very happy if my employer compensated me for my time with a Seven Million Dollar salary. Especially if I'd made upwards of Forty Million Dollars so far in my lifetime playing baseball for a living. But that's me.

A modest pay cut has got to be better than sitting on the sidelines all year with nowhere to play. Maybe Mo is playing poker again, like he did with Lohse; that worked out pretty well for us last season.

So who knows what will happen.

I will say this, though: Ben Sheets' injury history remains a big red flag for me. However, IF we could sign him for less than Joel Piniero is going to make ($7.5M to suck - God Bless America) that's a win in my book. And something that should be seriously pursued.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

I opened the Post-Dispatch to read the game summary, and the photo coupled to the story features David Eckstein. I then flipped my Cardinals calendar to September. Care to guess who the featured player is for September? Yep.

As a seque, it has amused me for years the number of players that appear in the Cardinal calendar who are no longer with the team. This year that august list includes Edmonds, Rolen, the aforementioned Eckstein, and Juan Encarnacion (although the reason he's not with the team is anything but funny).

I saw the score scroll across ESPN's bottom line as 7-6 D-Backs, in the eighth or so (the inning escaped me, although it was late in the game), after sitting through what seemed to be an hour of college football scores from this weekend. Final score, as I'm sure you're aware, was 8-6 Arizona. What I didn't know until reading the game summary was the Cardinals led 5-1 through 4.

Who helped engineer this claiming of defeat from the jaws of Victory? Joel Piniero, that's who, the guy who leads the universe in 'games where I had the lead but couldn't hold it'. Jeez Joel, how do you sleep at night? How have you started 22 games but only gotten 11 decisions (the team is 11-11 in those starts)? How can you continue to cough up leads you're given? At what point does being durable (he's thrown 131 innings, which really isn't that durable but bear with me) get trumped by 'he can win games for us'?

Another stinging loss for a team that can't afford to lose right now. To add insult to injury, both Chicago and Milwaukee lost yesterday. It's probably my paranoia, but doesn't it seem what when they lose, we also lose, but when we lose, they typically win?

Not going to catch anyone with those metrics.

I'm Right, but Not Really

Well he didn't toss a 2-hit shutout, but Joel Piniero did acquit him self well, working 5 innings and allowing only 2 ER. Giving up a HR to Bronson Arroyo is a little bit disconcerting, but whatever.

Piniero was quoted in the Post Dispatch as saying his body didn't feel 100%. No kidding, really? I'm shocked to read that.

Cardinals had a look at the game until the seventh when the bullpen blew up. Flores walking Griffey to force in a run and then giving up a bases-clearing triple to Brandon Phillips summarily ended the game. It also allows me to wallow in the second-guess mud hole again. If Phillips kills left-handed pitching, why o why was Flores left in there to face him? Granted, if he could have gotten the light-hitting Jarish out instead of walking him in front of Griffey none of this happens, but still.

In other news, Adam Kennedy is not happy about his playing time being cut down in favor of Aaron Miles/Brendan Ryan. It was reported that he met with LaRussa about his playing time, but there probably won't be any substantive changes coming out of that meeting. LaRussa manages a certain way, and Miles is (for whatever reason) his guy. I thought the last line of the article was telling:

I think with Brendan and Aaron it’s not that big of a difference," La Russa
said. "Adam has always been a core guy, so it’s more of an adjustment for him. I think he can handle it. When he plays, he needs to play his tail
off." (emphasis mine)

Wow. I guess there's a perceived 'lack of effort' issue there. I'll throw it to my limited audience - has there been any instances of Kennedy not playing hard during the first part of this season? Because I can't remember any.

So they come home to play the Phillies for 3. Philadelphia is the other really good NL team right now (with our Cards and the Cubs). Should be interesting without AP anchoring the lineup against a good team.

As for the Padre game, it wasn't much of a game. Peavy gave up a leadoff hit, then retired the side in the first; the Padre home half of the inning went single, single, 3-R bomb from Giles, solo shot from Adrain Gonzalez (the opposite way; man is that guy strong), and the rout was on. 9-0 Padres.

The most interesting thing that happened was in the top of the third. A foul pop was hit down the third base line, and in trying to get out of the way, the security guard actually ran to the spot and got hit by the ball. Calls to have him escorted out of the game for interfering with a ball in play went unacknowledged.

Cardinals Win; Pujols Sidelined

I'm minding the store for my boss this week, as he is on travel, so this will have to be brief. Cardinals won last night in Cincinnati 7-2. The big news should have been Mitchell Boggs' first ML win, but instead it's AP's strained calf.

I saw the replay of him running out of the box on ESPN.com this morning; I wouldn't characterize it as 'pretty bad,' as Mozeliak said, but it certainly won't be something that he bounces back from before this weekend.

If he does have to go on the DL, what a crappy way to start the week - first Wainwright with his finger, now AP and his calf. I can't help but wonder, based on AP sitting most of the Washington series out last week with the calf, if he didn't rush himself back into the lineup too soon and do more damage.

And Rolen's calf injury in Sept 2004 immediately leapt to mind as I watched that replay. Rolen sat most of that month with the injury and (other than a superlative effort in the LCS against Houston, which was mostly driven by anger against LaRussa) wasn't himself the rest of that season.

Yikes. Keep a good thought.

Larry over at Vivaelbirdos has a great article on Wainwright's finger prognosis, which I won't try and top here; it's worth the read if you haven't seen it yet.

One final thought - the Cardinals announced Piniero will start tomorrow against Cincinnati, as he comes off the DL after a groin injury. I can't help but think this is a case of LaRussa hard-headedness and Piniero is going out there too soon after the injury. Here's why. As you know, I play a little softball in my spare time. About 5 years ago I strained my groin going after a fly ball in RC (which approximates how Piniero strained his). I sat out the rest of that game because I couldn't push off with my left leg; it took me a month to feel like I could run again comfortably, and another two weeks before I was willing to test it running full speed.

Clearly, although I'm in reasonable shape, I'm not a professional athlete in prime physical condition with access to virtually unlimited resources for medical care and rehabilitation. However, I play the outfield, where the action is somewhat sparse. I was playing 2-3 times a week at that point, and ended up not playing for almost a month. Piniero is a pitcher, at the center of each and every play in the game, and he's only been sidelined 3 weeks. He's going to put a lot more stress on that muscle immediately, and if it's a little bit tender he's going to damage it again.

Wouldn't Reyes be a better option in the short-term to protect Piniero long-term? Is LaRussa's anti-Anthony stance blinded him to his options here? If Reyes is considered that low of a prospect at this point, maybe the Cardinals would be better off DFA-ing him and moving on.

(When Piniero throws a 2-hit shutout today forget we had this conversation)

Leave a Pitch In The Middle Of The Plate, Get Burned

AP Photo/Larry Ignelzi

Piniero made one mistake in a bad spot - 2 on, 2 out in the sixth against the Padres #5 hitter - and Kevin Kouzmanoff hit it out to dead center for a 3-R HR.

Padre color commentator Mark Grant thought it was a slider that didn't slide. Whatever. It was definitely a breaking ball, and it hung in the middle of the zone, the proverbial "ball on a tee". Kouzmanoff didn't miss it. It was Piniero's 88th pitch of the game. He would throw 2 more, the second turning into a sharp single to LF by Khalil Greene, before exiting.

The warning signs were already up before Kooz hit his HR. Piniero missed his targets badly while striking out Adrian Gonzalez for the second out of the sixth. His 1-0 pitch was supposed to be on the inner half, but actually got a lot of the outer half of the plate. I can only assume Gonzo wasn't looking for that pitch in that spot, because that's a pitch he usually handles with power. The other pitch was on 2-1, I believe; Molina set up inside and Piniero missed way outside.

I have noticed that LaRussa tends to let his pitchers work out of trouble, even when they are missing their spots; he did it in 2006 with Carpenter on several occasions, for example. Carp is a good enough pitcher to battle through when he's tired. Piniero is hit or miss. I thought, watching that game, that perhaps LaRussa should have gotten Joel after he retired Gonzo. Hindsight is always 20-20, of course. There were good reasons to leave him in. It was only the bottom of the sixth; Piniero had barely cracked the 80 pitch mark; the Padres had only 2 hits coming into that inning (although they had matched that total in the sixth); he had just struck out the Padres best hitter. Of course, some of those reasons are also good ones for taking him out.

Can't really blame the offense for this one. Maddux pitched well other than the second inning, and the Cardinals managed to plate 2 runs. It could have been at least one more if Piniero gets a better bunt down. Credit the rookie Carlin with a good play to retire Kennedy at second. Other than that threat, Maddux pitched like he always does against St. Louis - Tough.

In other news, AP went 0-4, but that o-fer included a line shot in the first right at Gonzo that turned into a DP, and a hard ground ball in the sixth that Kouzmanoff made a real nice play on diving towards the LF line.

AP gave an interesting interview to the Padres radio pre-game show yesterday afternoon. I caught about 2/3 of it before pulling into my driveway. In addition to the usual platitudes about the team and LaRussa (and that' s not a dig at AP; just good interview-ese), he was asked about his approach, specifically if he changes his approach for a notorious pitcher's ballpark like Petco. His short answer: No. His longer answer focused on keeping his routine, which includes video of that night's pitcher and time in the batting cage to get loose.

He also said "I don't worry about the ballpark. I can hit it out of anywhere." Not boastful, just matter of fact. I thought that was cool. His approach during BP, if you are interested, is to make good contact and concentrate on hitting line drives gap-to-gap (this matches what he told Joe Morgan during an interview ESPN played on Sunday Night Baseball about 2 weeks ago). If it goes out, it goes out. He wants to get the ball deep in the power alleys on a line. Real interesting to me to hear what he focuses on. I know I'm only a beer-league softball player now, but I tend to get caught up trying to hit it 350 feet plus (because I can) instead of concentrating on making solid contact and hitting a line drive.

Which, incidentially, is what my father tried to impress on me. Since AP does the same thing, looks like my dad knew what he was talking about. And that doesn't surprise me one bit.