St. Louis Cardinals

By athooks The message I’ve been flooded with in my GMail has been pretty consistent these past two days… shut the hell up about the politics. I’m no Hannity or Colmbs, I’m a stupid baseball blogger that needs to stick to baseball or my face will be broken.  Noted.

By athooks If the Cardinals team objective was to lose all 6 games of the current road trip, I’m pleased to report that they are close to achieving success. I would have personally suggested trying to win games as to lose games to catch the Brewers, but I trust the Cardinals. I’m sure they know what they’r...

By athooks If you were to busy to watch any Cardinal baseball this weekend- you didn’t miss much. The Cardinals took the backseat to college football and promptly shit the bed. Not surprising, I suppose. Baseball playing is a job and they obvioulsy didn’t want to ‘work’ on the holiday weekend either. To r...

By athooks 3. Jimmy John’s has decilcious meat filled sandwiches. 4. Whatever you do- don’t fucking piss off King Albert Pujols. 1. Getting drunk and making passes at other players wives/husbands (Gays! In Wisconsin!!??) 5. Supporting Mike Huckabee.

By ryan vb Like I said, it’s the bats that need to come through. Looking back at the lineup used the last time the Cards faced the Brewers’ Ben Sheets, tonight’s starter, TLR went with Ankiel, Glaus and Ludwick in the 4,5 and 6 spots. Lately, Ludwick has been working out of the #2 spot, with Ankiel and Glau...

By athooks The Milwaukee Brewers come to town this evening and it’s pretty simple, really. If the Cardinals win they’re certified Wild Card Contenders and the season gets exciting. A loss and a very nice season becomes a very nice third place season. We’ll know the moment tonight- the exact point in whi...

By Marcella By the time he wrote “Ball Four,” Bouton had been a successful pitcher with the New York Yankees, even defeating the Cardinals in a game or two in the 1964 World Series. He got hurt, lost his good stuff, and became a knuckleballer. The book describes his 1969 season after he had been traded to th...

By ryan vb Just like in real life, it’s a showdown between the Cardinals and Pirates, in mascot form. Our friends over at Home Run Derby (billed as “Not nearly as Yuppie as other baseball sites”) have our own FredBird duking it out with Pittsburgh’s Pirate Parrot. Go vote for FredBird, but take it easy o...

By athooks Izzy on the other hand, called Busch Stadium his home office since 2002, a couple of years before I went on an ESPN affiliate and tried to do a radio show. I think we’ve covered Jason enough over the past 6 years to say much more than thanks AND it was time to retire. He won’t make it official until h...

By ryan vb If Carpenter returns - who doesn’t want that - Wainwright could go to the bullpen. Dumb. Wainwright makes the pen better as a starter. Until he went down with his strange finger injury, he averaged 7+ innings per start, working less than six just twice. If the Cards can score enough runs to match...

By athooks It’s a scary thought that winning 3 out of 4 on the road from a divisional contender looses you ground… (And now that I’ve wrote this, you might want to head over to BoDog and bet your life savings on the Marlins winning today.) A fatal flaw has been exposed in the Cardinals nefarious plan to cli...

By athooks The Cardinals on the other hand, are playing ball in arguably the best division in baseball. Their chief rivals, the Chicago Cubs acquired a front line ace, as did the Milwaukee Brewers. Not wanting to sacrifice future prospects for bullpen talent now- the Cardinals stood pat. But knowing t...

By Marcella There was the really cool moment after the game when Adam Wainwright autographed my T-shirt. Said shirt—a Wainwright T-shirt—was my door prize at last January’s Caravan in Memphis. As I never, ever win anything, that was quite the pleasant surprise, and it’s just cool that Adam signed it.

By athooks LINK HERE Congratulations to the Cubs for winning the NL Central last night. They spent a lot of money and actively pursued trades- things winning teams do and got their just desserts. Hopefully one of these days the Cardinals will accept the fact that Chicago is no longer going to be the love...

By Marcella And there’s a gracious plenty of it around. Dead wood, I mean. For example, the Cardinals pitching staff. Does anyone out there really think that Mulder, Villone, Isringhausen, Franklin, and Springer are viable-likely-to-produce-new-growth shoots? I think not.

By athooks Depraived of winning, they turn insuffarable at the mere whiff of hope. We can only hope that the Cardinals decide to take a stand against all that is unholy this weekend and beat the bat piss out of those nasal-y, Old Style swilling pigs on the North Side. They’ll prolly get whupped up on and le...

By athooks The Cardinals are 12 games above .500, in a virtual tie for the wild card lead with the Brewers and are within striking distance of the NL Central leading Cubs, who, oh by the way, happen to have the best record in baseball. Yet every game feels like a loss for some reason. It’s freaky really. This a...

By ryan vb 2) You’re better off rolling up the money and smoking it than you are handing out big contracts for relief pitchers. Izzy and Franklin represent $10.25 million of the Cardinals total 2008 payroll. The good news: this is Izzy’s last season. The bad news: we’ve got two more years of Franklin. And i...

By athooks I’m not going to portend to know what offers Cardinals management made and/or rejected yesterday, the non-waiver trade deadline for Major League Baseball. I’ve heard several good rumors- but alas, they are just that. What we do know is what we’ve got. Granted, what we’ve got has taken us to t...

By athooks First, Burnett. You remember before he signed a huge FA contract with the Jays two years ago, the Cardinals were probably a close second in the race for the coveted arm. Of course, the Cards didn’t come close to the $$$ he was seeking and offered his services to the highest bidder- in this case t...

By athooks 5. Sign Barry Bonds. Why the hell not? At least the last 50 games would be interesting in some form or another. Game 1-0-3. Mark it. We’ve officially been eliminated from playoff contention. First- and I want to make this clear- the 2008 Cardinals exceeded all of my expectations. I firmly believed...

By athooks Obviously today is a big day. It’s a holiday, 1. It’s also the start of a crucial 3 game series with the division leader Chicago Cubs. If 1st place wasn’t enough of an incentive to get fired up for a game tonight we also have Jim Edmonds returning to St. Louis for the first time since getting traded a...

By ryan vb Last year, former closer Octavio Dotel was traded from the Royals to the Braves for 23-year-old RHP Kyle Davies. Dotel, like Fuentes, was a kind of rental at the time with a player option for 2008, except Fuentes doesn’t have a contract option for next season. At the time, the Braves viewed Da...

By athooks Mike Parisi needs to say his good-byes and head on his merry way to the Memphis. Seeing as by the time your lazy ass actually wakes up to read this I’ll be in Oregon, he may have been optioned out. If not. Why? Really why? He’s the Grim Reaper of the 2008 Cardinals. Mike Parisi: ‘I only need one inning...

By athooks It’s hard to see the trees through the forest this morning. Or some other lame metaphorical bullshit. There’s plenty to talk about from last nights game. (In no order: Rick’s catch, Wellemeyer’s start, Pujols’ streak, etc al.) But all we can think about this morning at CD headquarters is that...

By ryan vb The Cardinals cleanup spot has the second lowest OPS (.676) in the National League. The fifth spot has seen better results, to the tune of a .984 OPS, second best in the league. That’s thanks mostly to Ryan Ludwick’s 1.263 OPS in 26 plate appearances in the fifth spot. Glaus’ number five numbers ha...

By ryan vb That said, it’ll be strange to watch the Cardinals without the man who taught us that cut off t-shirts weren’t just something you wore to drive around in a primer gray ‘86 Camaro. Now the Cards can use Ankiel, Barton, Duncan and Schumaker as regulars in the OF. Rasmus gets a shot out of spring tr...