Tuesday, April 24, 2007

road grays

in anticipation of the rabid/thedamned family's imminent move (in two months), and for the sake of readability, i am changing the blog into it's road grays. please let me know if the change is to your liking (or just comment on something; i don't care, i just like feedback).

if schumaker isn't switched out for ryan ludwick soon, i'm going to have to call in the goon temp agency my company uses for collections and have him placed on the dl. i love the defense, skip, but this is not a lineup that can afford to carry a .185 obp outfielder. we need some pop (hell some contact, even) in the worst way. since so taguchi has tony's vote for the "aging fourth outfielder with something to prove award," he's here to stay. sorry, skip.

Friday, April 20, 2007

are giants stronger than pirates?

in the end, it doesn't matter, as they both seem to be able to outplay the cardinals. rabid thoughts

albert seems to be seeing the ball a little better, which is promising. if anyone else on the team can manage to get it going (hello, scott and jimmy), we may be able to go from having a horrendous offense to a merely a limp offense. lots of bloggers have noted that he seems to be pulling everything these days, which is a bothersome habit, but probably just a habit, so here's hoping he can break out of it.

mr edmonds, this town (mostly) loves you. please justify this with your bat (we know how great a defender you still are). a scant three years ago, you had grounded into the fewest double plays of any major leaguer (4), a number you have already matched in april of 07. 4 is an absurdly low number for a season, but it's high for a hitter of your calibur in less than one month.

i want birds to eat some bear this weekend. i want to not have to hang my head in shame when a cub fan walks by. i want an outfielder who can hit now and again.

Monday, April 16, 2007

coming in out of the cold

saturday's postponed game was the first one that mrs. rabid and i attended. it was cold, and so were the cardinals' bats. they were the best seats i have ever purchased (right field field boxes, twenty feet into foul territory). the drunken folks behind us had driven in from hannibal, mo in time for the noon start; instead of going to the arch, or the art museum, or some such, they had chosen to drink from noon until gametime. while your very own rabid redbird is no stranger to drink (though at times, sobriety has seemed like a long lost acquaintance), hours of drinking followed by hours of driving is never a good idea. i can only hope they killed no one on the way back to hannibal.

yesterday, our son, jackrabid, had his first birthday party/bbq. in celebration, the cardinals rediscovered their abilities at the plate (most of them, anyway... both rolen and edmonds 0-4 with a walk weren't quite mv3 calibur, but what can you do). perhaps i need to grill 20-plus pounds of meat for every game, or perhaps we need to change the jersey numbers to 42 permanently. whatever the case, it was good to see/hear.

that's all for today, as work crises come before baseball good times.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

various complaints about good things, game 9 post

with the game on the radio over my shoulder and everyone out for a while, i have a moment of calm at the ridiculously tense office. note to job seekers: never work for a family owned company with fewer than 25 employees if you're not a member of the family.

since my last post, we've found our way back to .500, which is good, and without carp or any real help from albert, which is amazing. last night's game winner hit by a sub who should have been a scratch himself was pretty damned cool. i'm still not convinced that this team isn't still in a decline phase, but at least we can still beat up on the weaker members of the division.

i am amazed at how many commentators and "experts" think that the astros standa chance this year. adding carlos lee doesn't make up for losing clemens and pettite, and very few teams can ride to glory on the backs of wandy rodriguez and woody williams (as a 41 year old).

carp's elbow is a worry, but i'm of the school of thought that says better to lose him for part or even all of this season than have him be less effective in the remaining years of his contract. i was relatively impressed with kiesler last night, though i hope we don't ink him in at the cost of utilizing other important minor leaguers.

how long before we release hamlet (despite the occasional game winning two run double) and call up ankiel (with amaury marti/cazana taking his roster spot in aaa)? ankiel is tearing triple a up, amaury x is tearing the mexican league up, whereas preston is swinging for the fences every time and coming up short. like our other logjammed outfielders, ankiel is a left handed hitter, so he's more likely to replace skip schumacher.

as i type this, the pirates have a run in and the bases loaded, so i'd better stop posting. if i go on too long, i'm sure someone else important will end up on the dl.

Friday, April 06, 2007

looking forward

as a cardinal fan who fell in love with the team during the boom years (2001 to the present), i don't have a sense of perspective on an 0-3 start. thank god i have become a fan of baseball in the last two years. today, the warehouse manager and i went to nick's pub for lunch, and there was a kansas/kansas state game on. i watched it as though i were being offered a scouting position. the alternative was an ultimate fighting ripoff, so it's not like it was a hard decision, but still...

there is no curse.

all in all, i'm really looking forward to tonight's game. i want to see wainwright start, if only to see if that hammer curve flattens out after a few innings (please, god, no). i really hope we see a three hr game for the redbirds tonight, with none in the cheatboxes in left. god knows they need the morale boost. god knows cardinal nation does as well.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

curse reversal?

i wondered aloud to mrs. rabid last night if there had been a reworking of the rabid redbird curse, i.e. that the cardinals would lose if i didn't post here. i promised to investigate, so here, for the sake of experiment, is the test post. if the cardinals win tonight, i will try to post at least a little before every game. if not, i will give up my silly superstitions.

on the whole, the cards haven't played such bad baseball these last two games, but they haven't been able to get all of the good baseball into one inning. last night, there were some timely hits that weren't followed up by timely hits. bloop, bloop is good when followed by blast, or even when followed by bloop, bloop, bloop, ad nauseam.

glavine and el duque are good pitchers, so it isn't the end of the world by any means. kip wells actually looked (to mike and john, sounded to me) pretty good last night, apart from the error. albert's double and rolen's homer were promising signs, but i get the feeling that team hasn't gelled yet. how many double plays can one hit into? one would hope we've knocked out a good portion of ours for april in these first two games.

there is no curse. last year, when rabid redbird began and the youngest member of the rabid family was born, we won the world series. remember that every day. remember catching siouxs! (mrs rabid) when she came running in from the kitchen between the final out being announced on the radio and actually seeing it on tv. remember the look on yadi's face, and remember that the guy who got that final out will see a lot more innings this year.