dear braden looper

you had your moments as a starter, but if the last half of last season and this spring training have taught us anything, it's that coaches eventually turn back into pumpkins, finery turns back into rags, and aging relievers don't suddenly revive their careers by working every fifth day.

remember the 'pen? all the joking and good times? remember being the one they counted on when the pressure was on, but then usually not being on the hook for the loss?

anthony reyes doesn't belong in the bullpen, though he'll gladly go there instead of memphis. he's not a reliever, and right now, he's our number two or three starter (small sample size notwithstanding). let him know we're rooting for him to be a starter someday soon, and that we even hope it's with the cardinals.

please forward this message to your boss, and tell him that resolve is admirable, but pig-headedness is asinine.

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.

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.

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.

fifty some odd hours to go

real baseball is coming so soon, i can hardly stand it. of course, if it isn't simulcast, i won't get to watch it, as we are the last american family without cable (by choice, i might add, though we do miss watching a lot of baseball). nonetheless, real baseball.

in the meantime, tonight, we've got real baseball versus just shy of real baseball. i hope john rodriguez gets a start in rf for memphis, and i hope he clobbers the shit out of the ball, even if it's at the expense of adam wunderkind. no team needs both so taguchi and skip schumaker as of's. i realize that both skip and jrod are left handed swingers, but they have different skill sets as well. despite the fact that a disproportionate number of major league pitchers are lefties as compared to the general population, there are still a lot fewer lh's out there than rh's, so both skip and jrod could still be used in optimal conditions most of the time.

tomorrow night we have the civil rights game in memphis, featuring the cardinals versus the indians, supporting an effort to raise african american participation in the game. perhaps the idea behind putting the indians in such a game is so that all baseball fans, be they of black, white, hispanic or asian descent, can join together and say "at least we have it better than the indians." actually, part of the purpose of the game is celebrating the indians getting rid of (inordinately racist mascot) chief wahoo's bottle of firewater. someone told me that the big contraversy was whether there would be a dh in the game. go figure.

happy weekend, cardinal fans. i'll try to get in an opening day post, but as usual, the computer is in the (very nearly one-year-old) baby's bedroom. bad planning in the rabid redbird house, to be sure.

(g)rumblings

from the various happenings since my last post or passed over by it:

i'm ok with the ryan franklin signing, as long as it doesn't force anthony reyes or adam wainwright to be the odd man out. it's just a cheap insurance thing that keeps braden looper that much further out of the rotation.

rick ankiel has yet one more last chance to be a cardinal. count me among the "why the hell not" crowd, assuming we're paying him a regular minor league salary.

so signed today, pre-arbitration. i like so, but i wanted him to be an outfield defensive coach this year for the cardinals, not an outfielder. skip schumacher should be our defensive replacement this year, but 925k for so isn't that bad.

according to various sources, we either are or aren't trying to sign weaver. unless he's willing to sign for close to his actual worth and a short term contract, i say no thanks.

filthy little jorge

ok, so first of all, i'm not all that bothered by the jorge sosa signing, because it cost us very little, and maybe his heat will be a good thing to mix in with our pitch to contact set. he is also a relief pitcher we can allow to bat for himself without too much concern, so he can span a few innings without necessitating a pinch hitter. no, sosa isn't the problem so much as he is not the solution. what about the impact move we've been calling for/hearing about? what about the lack of off-season moves being to save money for the big trade deadline snag? where's my championship calibur team?

my complaint about our backup ss still stands as well. the first time i see miles and belliard as our middle infield, i may have to slit my wrists. hell, let spiez do it. i think i recall so taguchi playing some middle infield in an emergency situations before. christ, let rolen play short and put spiezio at third, just don't play gollum at short!

thanks, reverend redbird, for helping me share with cardinal nation aaron's true name...

at what price belliard?

this smacks of trading for trading's sake. luna for belliard seems like a great way to take on salary, but that's it. while it is true that belliard will probably be taking more time away from aaron miles than was hector, it still doesn't really solve any problems. not that they would have taken it, but couldn't we have given them miles and some low level prospect or something? my dislike of gollum is occasionally proved unnecessary, but only occasionally. he's got a few clutch hits for us, but not nearly enough to make me like having the shortest middle infield in the majors. hector luna, on the other hand, may not have always come through in the clutch, but he did hit. it seems like we left him on base in the ninth quite a few times this year when he represented the tying run...

whatever, in a year or two, it may prove that walt saw the possibilty of magic, or some such nonsense, but for the time being, belliard seems like a good money sink and nothing more. here's hoping there's another (meaningful) trade in the works.

three day withdrawal

three days with no baseball in the middle of the summer is great for our players, but for me, it's like trying to hold my breath for the same length of time. ok, maybe a better analogy would be not eating for three days, which i might actually be able to survive; thinner, desperate, but still going. the all star game was fine (except for phil garner putting cabrera in at third as a defensive replacement instead of rolen... makes as much (defensive) sense as tlr putting yadi in center, and it cost the nl home field advantage), but hardly memorable, and didn't quite fulfill my need (the all star game is like methadone, to use yet a third simile to describe the same thing).

some post-break thoughts

aubrey huff to the astros... i know a lot of cards fans and bloggers were hoping to snag this guy, but it doesn't seem that big a loss to me. true, they traded him for some bags of sunflower seeds, but still, i don't think it pushes them over the top or anything.

rotation woes... i'm not exactly an optimist, but when it comes to the cardinals, i guess i generally expect things to go pretty well. the last two years have spoiled us in terms of win totals. the rotation should regain some footing in the second half. reyes is strong, weaver is an improvement on ponson, and eventually, mulder might be able to throw a ball better than they did in my third grade coach pitch league twenty years ago. carp has taken some bad breaks, but is still dominant, and i think we're hitting marquis' good stretch he seems to have every year at a good time.

trade deadline... we need to trade for a real left fielder. i'm perfectly content with luna, gollum, and luna at second, but the left field travelling roadshow has got to stop.

wow, this might be my longest post. go second half cards!

i grew up a reds fan. my dad was a reds fan, so by association, i was a reds fan. i hate the reds this year.
it isn't because they are in first. it's because i don't like seeing that kind of baseball. last night's game only featured two home runs, but i don't like seeing teams live and die by the home run. don't get me wrong... i love the home run, and great long ball hitters are something to watch, but if they happen every game, they lose something. show me a hard fought four to five game with fifteen hits total, all the runs manufactured. give me small ball. give me great (or at least, evenly matched) pitching.
for all my bitching, last night's game was the other kind i hate to see. it's one where the redbirds just seem to roll over and die. i don't like the kid much, but bronson arroyo pitched quite a game, the cornrow-wearin' brat.