Cubs Even the Series
Written by Mike on September 10, 2008 – 10:50 pm -
Ted Lilly is good, and that sucks. Really, he’s good. Seriously, that sucks. Lilly kept the Cardinal hitters off balance all night, lasting eight innings, giving up just one run on five hits. He was brilliant. To me, he looks hittable. I guess to Major League hitters, he’s not.
So you’d think that Lilly’s dominance was the difference in the game. You’d be wrong. Blame it on the Cardinals’ defense. The Cards committed two errors, both by Felipe Lopez at third, but they had several other defensive miscues, and it clearly cost them the game. Only one of the Chicago’s four runs was earned, and the Cardinals lost the game 4-3. Here’s the full recap and box score.
I took note of a few other things in tonight’s loss:
- Jason Motte still kicks ass.
- Josh Kinney was awesome. Welcome back.
- Ryan Ludwick now has 33 home runs.
- Cubs pitchers and balks go hand in hand.
- Josh Phelps shouldn’t play in left field.
Chances are, since you’re reading this, you follow the Cardinals as closely as I do. I’m sure you were scoreboard watching, and noticed that although the Phillies lost to the Marlins, both the Brewers and the Astros won tonight, which is bad news for the Redbirds. The Cardinals have now fallen to fourth place in the NL Central, trailing the Cubs by nine games, and 4.5 games back in the Wild Card race.
Yesterday was great. Tonight was horrible. That’s the way it goes, I guess. One thing is for sure, though, the National League Central can no longer be considered a weak division.
So, tomorrow is another day. It’s the rubber game of this heated rivalry. Todd Wellemeyer gets the ball for the Cardinals. Rich Harden will take the mound for the Small Bears. A Cardinal win is imperative for their playoff hopes. Go Cards!
A Misfire
Written by Mike on September 3, 2008 – 6:53 pm -Last night, the St. Louis Cardinals finally figured out that earning a win takes all aspects of the game. They finally were firing on all cylinders. They had outstanding starting pitching from Adam Wainwright, the offense surged with three home runs to give the Redbirds another early lead, and the bullpen allowed only one run in 3.2 innings to preserve the win. The Cards won big, 8-2.
Today’s game got off to a similar start. The offense got it started, courtesy of Troy Glaus’ 300th career home run, giving the Cards the lead in the third. Kyle Lohse threw a superb six innings of shutout baseball, where he allowed five hits and struck out seven.
The difference proved to be the bullpen once again. Kyle McClellan put Arizona back in the game, allowing two runs in his .2 innings of work. Later, one of the newest Cardinals, Jason Motte, came in with the game on the line and struck out Mark Reynolds to end the seventh. Motte also pitched a scoreless eighth before giving way to rookie closer Chris Perez in the ninth. Perez couldn’t close the door, picking up his third blown save of the year. A misfire. Arizona won 4-3. Here’s the full recap and box score.
The Cardinals really could have used a win today. They picked up a game on the Wild Card leading Milwaukee Brewers with last night’s win, but remain 5.5 games out after today’s loss despite the Mets’ triumph over the Brew Crew earlier.
For those that haven’t seen the complete list of September call-ups, here you go:
- Randy Flores P
- Kelvin Jimenez P
- Josh Kinney P
- Jason Motte P
- Mark Johnson C
- Brian Barden IF
- Josh Phelps IF
- Brendan Ryan IF
Of course we already know what to expect from Ryan, Flores, and Jimenez. Phelps is again getting accustomed to the bigs, and Motte had a remarkable Major League debut tonight. I’m hoping Kinney is as impressive as he was the last time we saw him, during the run to the ‘06 World Series Championship.
The Cards have the day off tomorrow before hosting the Florida Marlins for three games. To stay in the hunt, they’ll need a big boost after their 1-5 road trip.
Josh Phelps and More
Written by Mike on January 11, 2008 – 2:27 am -
The Cardinals added more depth for their bench today, signing right-handed hitting first baseman, Josh Phelps, to a minor league deal. The contract is said to include an invite to Spring Training, where he’ll earn $750,000 if he makes the big club, with possible incentives adding another $250,000. Phelps, 29, has played for five different teams, including Pittsburgh in ‘07, where he hit .351, with 5 homers in 77 at-bats. All of his stats can be found here. Derrick Goold, of the Post Dispatch, has more on the signing here.
In ‘03, my cousin and I went to ‘Fan Photo Day’ at Wrigley (where the fans got to go down of the field and meet some of the players and take pictures). Neither one of us were terribly interested (we were both much more interested in just seeing Wrigley from the field, more than anything), with one exception. He absolutely had to get a picture with Matt Clement (who, for various reasons, is his favorite player - so much so, that his license plate reads “HMC 30” - the H stands for Honest). The way this whole thing was set up, there was a rope and the players would sort of walk along the rope from one end of the field to the other, posing for pictures and shaking hands along the way. It got pretty crowded along the rope and the crowd was probably 5 or 6 people deep at this point. When my cousin saw Clement, he politely pushed his way through the crowd to get up to the front, yelling “Matt! Matt!” the whole way to get Clement’s attention.
My cousin is a big guy (6’6”, probably 280). He gets to the front of the line, directly in front of Clement, and my cousin says “Matt! I’m your biggest fan!” At this point, the chucklehead standing next to him yells, “Literally!”, due to my cousin’s size. My cousin and Clement both crack up (at which point I snap the picture from the back of the crowd - one of my favorite pictures ever) from the joke. It became one of those stories that gets told over and over again and “Literally!” became something of a catchphrase within our circle of friends.
Around this time last year, I’m starting to think about my upcoming wedding and what to get my cousin for a best man’s gift. I wanted to get him something really, really special, because he’s done a lot for me over the years and the traditional stuff just wasn’t going to cut it. I was thinking about getting an autographed ball from the internet or something, but I decided that wasn’t good enough, so I wrote Clement a letter telling him the story and what a big fan my cousin was and asked him if he would mind signing the ball that I sent. A few months pass, and I get a package in the mail from Boston. I open it up and Clement signed the ball, “To Ben, My Biggest Fan - Literally! Matt Clement # 30”. This absolutely made my freakin’ day. I don’t think I stopped laughing for a week.
The night of my rehearsal, I give my cousin the ball and he was just stunned. I mean, he practically cried. He got me a truly great wedding gift (the best gift we got from anyone, in fact), and he later told me that he was embarrassed about how crappy his gift to us was compared to the ball. It’s one of his prized possessions now.
