clocking in at not quite a month between posts is better than i was doing a year ago...

some thoughts on this year so far:

offense: clearly, we have a bit more of it that last year, but like the last three years have been, it's seems to have an on-off switch that we don't yet understand. our usual producers are producing, usually, and even a few rookie types are showing their stuff, but when we're cold, we're all very cold.

pitching: so far, despite some stellar performances from surprising individuals (see piniero, joel, first few starts of), the cracks are starting to show. it seems the man we knew to be our go to ace this year has been struggling, but the guy we wanted to hope could come back to ace form knows how to fix it. multiple great pitchers coming back to their true abilities? i'll drink that kool-aid, thanks.

albert: is still albert fucking pujols. greatness, my friends, greatness, like legend of the game type greatness, spoken in the same breath as ruth, mantle, aaron greatness. even the agnostics among us, pray for his continued health and that he likes his restaurant enough to stay in town for the rest of his long and storied career.

yadi: leading catchers in ba? that's what i'm talking about.

manny: being somewhat more than manny. ha.

with three other nl central teams looking at least a little bit threatening, that's all i'll commit to as yet, but i remain cautiously optimistic. i have been able to watch all or parts of more games this year than i was all last year (thank you direct tv) but have missed a few that seemed to be no brainers (all of which we lost, i might add) (god damned mlb restrictions).

i'm so easily manipulated. one comment from my dear friend at Twunch, and here i go, posting on the interbot again about the baseball i so dearly love. some updates.

we have moved again, this time within knox vegas to a house we bought. thanks to directv, we now have the mlb network for the first time in our lives, granting us perhaps 3 more games a year. since we have yet another kid on the way, we get to watch that much less, but it's nice to know it's there.

ok, the baseball. it's too early to do a season preview, and that's not really what this blog has been about from the start. let's just get back to the little blurbs all three of you who've read this blog all know and love.

as i type this, albert has hit his fourth homer of the young season, and the cards are sitting at a 5-2 record. here's hoping for another standard season from the mang, by which of course i mean another thor-like performance. we're currently tied with the fucking cubs for the lead of the nl central, but trust me, no matter what, they will find a way to fuck this up. it seems that we have at least three, and perhaps even four pitchers available to fill out our five man rotation. hell, even piniero has made me feel all giddy inside for the '09 season, though he too will manage to fuck that up, i think.

carp. if it's true, it's what i've been hoping for for two years. it's the reason i felt it worth starting to post again. it's the reason i still believe as only a man who still is amazed when a lottery ticket turns into nothing at all can believe. please, carp, please.

oh, and i went to church yesterday for the first time in several years. that's gotta help, right?

some thoughts on the new cards this year.

dennys reyes and trevor miller are both left handed. they will do. that is all.

khalil greene should prove that he is capable of sustaining his previous levels of offensive production, while creating only a slight decrease in infield defense as compared to izturis. he ma also show at least a touch of emotion while in st louis.

joe thurston will manage to look like a big leaguer and sign with someone else for way too much next season. he will then fail, but we will have got what we needed from him. well met, sir.

freese and barden will probably rotate out for their memphis equivalents (or troy glaus, should he prove not to be totalled) as the season progresses. they will show promise, but still need seasoning, which they will not really get.

colby rasmus will start somewhat slow on paper, but be an OPS force from day one.

there, the season preview i promised i wouldn't do. why you trust me, i'll never kow.

facing wain? pray for rain.

i forced myself not to reference alanis morissette in the title of this post. you can than me later.

rained out first game, but so far, so good. i guess albert will have to hit two dingers tomorrow to make up for the erased one today. it's too bad that wainwright won't get the chance to get an opening day win, but at least he won't take the loss either.

in lieu of the cards game, i've been tuned to every other baseball game available, and i have to say this. eric gagne is a big ball of fuck. after coughing up the lead in the cubs/brewers game so fast you'd think he was paid off, he managed to pitch his way through one inning (purportedly his job) and take the win from ben sheets, who started and shut out the cubs for six plus innings.

auspicious beginning for fukudome, however. ah, they'll still fuck it up.

tomorrow, lohse versus kip "kip wells" wells. i set the over/under for kip's era after tomorrow at infinity. any takers?

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.

on second thought

this should prove to be an interesteing year for the cards. if we can just forget the mistake that is cesar izturis sooner rather than later, we may have a chance to see a real youth movement at busch. we already have the majority of our players on this side (only for a few more months, for me) of thirty, if memory serves. all of them are at least somewhat intriguing, so even if we aren't a contender, we could be seeing the future of our cardinals.

the missus left for st louis tonight; i expect her call to let me know she arrived safely any time now. i will be going tomorrow for a total of thirty-six hours or so before returning and getting back to the ol' vino slinging. ah well, at least i'll be able to stop by the stadium for a few minutes with jackthedamned.

oh, eight.

seeing as how this blog is receiving more traffic than the other, more general of my two, i guess i'd better post at least a little something before i go off to work.

happy 2008, folks. anything that the cardinals do well this season is going to be something to marvel at, considering health issues and whatnot. to be quite honest, if they finish as high as third in the division, i will consider that a moral victory. not that i want things to be this way, of course, but i'm trying to be realistic here. all but one of our pitching options who are worth watching are injured or coming off injury, our power numbers, which have been fading for three years, are at an all time low (though glaus should boost them a little), our middle infield is so lackluster that i'm considering breaking out my second baseman's glove from when i was 8, and the greatest baseball player of our generation has a bum elbow. but other than that, we're just peachy.

i might just get a little fantasy team going. if anyone has any interest, let me know soon via comments on this blog.

long time no blog

according to statcounter, i have been getting traffic despite my extended absence from the workd of cardinal blogging. that's fantastic. i just got done watching via gameday our seventh straight loss, so i figured there was no way the rabid redbird curse was in effect, as i haven't posted an entry since june or before.

a bit of update. the missus and i have moved back to my homeland of knoxville, tn. we have cable for the first time, so we have seen almost as many cardinal games since we got back as we had for the last two years, at least on television. i was lucky enough to get to watch our dismantling at the hands of the reds live on television tuesday and yesterday, and then today, though i was at work, we've had no customers in the coffee box, so i kept up with the whole sad affair on gameday.

is anyone else looking forward to 2008? or maybe 2009?