Viva El Birdos

Still More Words about the St. Louis Cardinals

2012-05-15T21:15:04Z

Hey, you—potential St. Louis Cardinals content consumer! There's been some good stuff going on at SB Nation St. Louis and in our own FanPosts section, which can be read at this link in a kind of shadow-blog format with its own RSS feed. Here, with some commentary, are some links to that good stuff.

SB Nation St. Louis

The Legopiece Theater: Dugout Abbey saga has continued, with Alex Fritz's Game of Thrones-ian cast of characters expanding for an interview with the St. Louis Sign Guy and Yadier Molina's very discreet doctor.

In non-Lego news, I've been really happy to run more of Nathan Grimm's work on the site, since I don't get the chance to do a lot of longer work about the Cardinals there myself. Here's a feature about what Chris Carpenter's return will do to the Cardinals' rotation.

Also: The last time Carlos Beltran was as good as he's been this year was the last time he appeared to be healthy.

Viva El Birdos

I've always thought it a little strange how different the clientele sometimes is between the commenters on the main posts and the writers and commenters in the FanPost section, and here's a good example: I've yet to come into contact with noted Simpsons character and new VEB member tmcclure, who has zero comments to date, but he's already made three fun FanPosts since joining the site earlier this month.

Here's a look at the Cardinals' numerical dominance just before the current losing streak began; this week he took a look at whether Lance Lynn is presently on pace to be the best Cardinals pitcher ever.

Elsewhere, elidajuiceman, another new member, takes a long look at Tyler Greene and comes out of it hoping for Kolten Wong to get to St. Louis as soon as possible.

Cubs at Cardinals Open Thread: Paul Maholm vs. Kyle Lohse

2012-05-15T17:30:09Z

"Hey Paul Maholm,

why so solemn?"

"Wherever I roams,

they still say Pat Mahomes."

Current Series

Cubs lead the series 1-0

Mon 05/14	WP: Shawn Camp (2 - 1) SV: Rafael Dolis LP: Mitchell Boggs (0 - 1)	4 - 6 loss
Chicago Cubs Bleed Cubbie Blue @ St. Louis Cardinals Viva El Birdos Tuesday, May 15, 2012, 1:45 PM EDT Busch Stadium Paul Maholm vs Kyle Lohse Sunny. Winds blowing out to right field at 5-10 m.p.h. Game time temperature around 75. Complete Coverage >

St. Louis Cardinals Injury Update: Jon Jay to Disabled List; Shane Robinson Recalled

2012-05-15T16:35:03Z

After today's starting lineup was announced with Skip Schumaker in center field, the St. Louis Cardinals announced that starting center fielder Jon Jay would be heading to the disabled list due to continued pain from the shoulder he separated during a collision with the Busch Stadium outfield wall last month. The club recalled outfielder Shane Robinson from Memphis just a few days after demoting the right-handed hitter to make room for Lance Berkman after the veteran's activation from the disabled list.

Jay collided awkwardly with the center field wall while tracking an eventual home run against the Reds on April 19. X-rays performed soon after the collision "showed no structural damage," according to an article by Jenifer Langosch of stlcardinals.com. Jay was listed as day-to-day by the club and held out of action save a pinch-running appearance on April 21 against Pittsburgh. The pain in Jay's shoulder persisted and ultimately resulted in an MRI being prescribed. The MRI showed "no damage inside the right shoulder" and the diagnosis was reported alternatively as a "sprain" and a "middle separation."

Jay received a cortisone shot in his shoulder and returned to everyday duty on April 27 against Milwaukee. Looking rather healthy in his return, Jay tallied three hits in each of his first two games back and twelve over his first five games following the injection. It was after his three-hit game against the Pirates on May 2 that Jay's seasonal slash line peaked at .429/.471/.556. Since that game, it has dropped considerably.

From May 3 through May 14, Jay has managed only a .241/.283/.262 line. Such hot and cold spells are not uncommon for the BABIP-dependent Jay and so the nagging injury was not readily apparent to fans. On May 2, Jay's seasonal BABIP sat at an unsustainable .439. From May 3 through 14, it was .257, and now sits at .370 for the season. Jay's 2012 slash states are .343/.395/.438 as he hits the disabled list today.

It seems that the soreness in his shoulder has not gone away and, after being more aggressive with Jay last month, have opted to pursue the more conservative path of the disabled list with him this time around. As of now, there is little to report on any new testing that gave rise to the decision to place Jay on the DL.

Robinson rejoins the club after filling in admirably as a backup during the extended absences of Schumaker, Allen Craig, and Berkman. In 48 2012 PAs, he has managed a line of .311/.354/.422 on the shaky foundation of a .394 BABIP. Having only hit over .300 over an extended stay at a level once in his professional career, Robinson is unlikely to maintain his current production. But, he is a good defensive center fielder, which is something the Cardinals lack with Jay out.

The St. Louis Cardinals Can't Win All The Regressing

2012-05-15T13:01:11Z

You Can't Win Them All or Luck Evens Out, Eventually aren't quite sabermetrically appropriate phrases, but there's something more satisfying about them than the idea of things regressing to the mean. I think it's because there's an element of moral judgment to the first two that appeals to me, as someone who always feels bad when too many things go his way at once.

So when the Cardinals lost yesterday that irrational part of me thought, hey, why get greedy? The Cardinals can't win every game, or else you're going to get bored and you'll have to start a new Baseball Mogul franchise. They still had 10 hits, including two each from Yadier Molina, Lance Berkman, and Allen Craig, and Jake Westbrook still got his groundballs.

At no point in the Cardinals' recent losing skid have things, in aggregate, stopped breaking their way. Their expensive catcher, whose OPS+ is still 131, narrowly avoided a season-altering injury, and their first baseman just got back from one that didn't affect their offensive output at all. Lance Lynn's back-down-to-earth start was three runs in six innings. Carlos Beltran's knee soreness—that one's worrying, since Beltran's currently hitting .295/.403/.648, but it's not a disaster yet and it's just in time for us to start wondering just how Craig is going to get at-bats.

You Can't Win All The Regressing, I guess. If Adam Wainwright's going to get better—and he almost definitely is—and Lance Berkman's going to play more than seven games out of every 35 this year, and Chris Carpenter's going to come back after the All-Star Break, instead of never, then the Cardinals are going to have to win a few Jake Westbrook starts with their bats.

For all that non-fatalism, though, I like the Cardinals' rapid response to this losing streak—dropping J.C. Romero in favor of Eduardo Sanchez.

Relief pitchers have earned a lot of exceptions to our present sample-size-obsessed methods of player evaluation. If a guy looks great for a few weeks he can go from expendable roster filler to a set-up man or even a closer; if he's got great stuff as a reliever we're willing to overlook some notably terrible years as a minor league starter. Striking out a batter an inning over about 15 innings seems to be about enough for me to rely on a guy whose name I was only vaguely familiar with the month before.

And J.C. Romero could wipe out 120 excruciating innings as a starting pitcher with a 1.89 ERA in the middle of the extremely-live-ball era that will be on his Baseball-Reference page forever, which means he could also get tossed from the Cardinals' 25-man roster with eight really bad innings.

For relief pitchers sample sizes never quite seem to even out—they just don't pitch enough before they're not the same pitcher anymore, unless they're Mariano Rivera. If snap judgments about players based on limited evidence are ever useful, they're useful about the guys at the back of the bullpen.

As for Eduardo Sanchez, he's calmed down after a terrible start in Memphis and if he looks good against right-handers the Cardinals will be able to use him where they're currently using Victor Marte. I'm a little surprised this wasn't Maikel Cleto, who the Cardinals rushed into the bullpen to start this season—and who has 23 strikeouts against six walks in 18 innings in Memphis—but it looks like Sanchez didn't quite struggle enough to lose first shot at the big league bullpen.

Coming after the game (probably), since I will be asleep and thus not really in a position to give a coherent recap: Our very irregular look at some good fanposts and SB Nation St. Louis posts you may have missed. Consider this your warning to jump from the gamethread at 4:15.

With 6-4 Loss To Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Cardinals Drop Fourth In A Row

2012-05-15T02:44:41Z

The Chicago Cubs swamped the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium on Monday night. The Cubs landed 22 runners on base by hit, walk, and St. Louis error. Despite only plating 6 of their baserunners, the Cubs managed to defeat the Cardinals 6-4 in the first game of the clubs' two-game series.

After a 1-2-3 first inning, starter Jake Westbrook had a rough outing. The sinkerballer allowed 11 hits and 2 walks in 5 innings pitched. Somehow, Westbrook only allowed 4 runs before leaving after 107 pitches thrown. He exited trailing 4-0 at the game's halfway point.

The Cardinals offense rallied to get Westbrook off the decision hook with a four-run sixth, but the Cubs bounced back with yet more baserunners. Jon Jay led things off with a single and Matt Holliday did the same. After Allen Craig flew out to center for the first out, Lance Berkman singled in Jay to make it a 4-1 game. David Freese then drew a walk and was thrown out at home on an double by Yadier Molina that drove in Holliday and Berkman. Skip Schumaker then floated a single to left field that scored Molina and made it a 4-4 game. Pinch-hitting for Eduardo Sanchez, Matt Carpenter struck out to end the inning.

Sanchez made his 2012 big-league debut in impressive fashion with a scoreless sixth that included a strikeout. Victor Marte threw a scoreless seventh, pitching his way around a hit and two Mike Matheny-ordered intentional walks with two strikeouts. Mitchell Boggs had another rough outing due to both his pitching and the Cardinals poor defense behind him. Boggs pitched the eighth and the ninth innings and wound up the "losing" pitcher with a line that featured two runs (one earned), two hits, one walk, two strikeouts, and two errors by his defense.

It was all-around ugly effort from the Redbirds on Monday night. The loss extends the St. Louis losing streak to four games--all at home. The two-game series concludes tomorrow at 12:45 P.M. CDT.

Game 35: St. Louis Cardinals vs. Chicago Cubs, May 14, 2012, 6:05 CDT

2012-05-14T22:50:03Z

Jake Westbrook

#35 / Pitcher / St. Louis Cardinals

Height: 6-3

Weight: 215

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Sep 29, 1977

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2012 - Jake Westbrook	4-2	6	6	0	0	0	0	41.0	34	10	8	1	10	27	1.76	1.07

Ryan Dempster

#46 / Pitcher / Chicago Cubs

Height: 6-2

Weight: 215

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: May 03, 1977

	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2012 - Ryan Dempster	0-1	5	5	0	0	0	0	35.1	20	6	4	1	10	36	1.02	.85

With Romero Gone, Who Will The St. Louis Cardinals Have Pitch To The Left-Handed Batters?

2012-05-14T18:50:30Z

Earlier today, the St. Louis Cardinals announced that they had unconditionally released veteran left-handed reliever J.C. Romero. Taking Romero's spot in the bullpen will be right-hander Eduardo Sanchez, who has apparently showed enough improvement with his mechanics and control in in the eyes of the front office to merit the promotion. The release of Romero and promotion of Sanchez means only one southpaw remains in the Cardinals bullpen. With only a single lefty remaining in the bullpen, who will fact opposing left-handed batters?

The following graph shows each Cardinals reliever's career splits against left-handed opposing batsmen, courtesy of Baseball-Reference.

Pitcher	PA	BAA	OBPA	SLGA	OPSA	K/BB
Rzcepczynski	266	.199	.280	.292	.573	3.36
McClellan	666	.210	.292	.339	.631	1.70
Motte	307	.273	.353	.421	.774	2.06
Salas	208	.241	.314	.412	.726	2.50
Boggs	422	.315	.404	.513	.917	0.89
Sanchez	46	.158	.283	.158	.441	2.20
Marte	103	.221	.350	.430	.780	0.94

It looks like Kyle McClellan should be the first non-Scrabble option against opposing left-handed batters. After HR-Mac, Fernando Salas, with his changeup, appears to be the second choice from amongst the righty relievers to face an opposing left-handed batter. It will be interesting to see how long the Cardinals stick with a one-lefty bullpen. With No. 10 on the outfield wall and not the manager's office, we can rest assured that Arthur Rhodes won't be making a second tour of duty with the Redbirds.

Cardinals Release J.C. Romero; Eduardo Sanchez Activated

2012-05-14T15:36:54Z

The St. Louis Cardinals have unconditionally released lefty J.C. Romero and activated right-handed pitcher Eduardo Sanchez from AAA Memphis, according to the team:

Reliever J.C. Romero has been unconditionally released. Right-hander Eduardo Sanchez has been activated and will join the team tonight.
— St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) May 14, 2012

Romero, 35, has just eight innings-pitched and a 10.13 ERA for the 2012 season. In fourteen seasons, he spent seven with the Minnesota Twins from 1999-2007, and five with the Philadelphia Phillies between 2007-2011. He also spent parts of seasons with the Rockies, Red Sox, and Angels before signing with the Cardinals in December for $750K.

Romero has a career 4.15 ERA and has earned a touch more than seven wins above replacement throughout his career.

B.J Rains of Fox Sports Midwest suggests the Cards sorely needed a fresh arm, but in several tweets expresses surprise the club moved Romero so quickly:

The Cardinals badly needed a fresh arm and Romero was the path of least resistance. Still kind of surprised they did it this early though.
— B.J. Rains (@BJRains) May 14, 2012

Sanchez, 23, was signed by the Cardinals as an amateur free agent in 2005, and saw 30 innings of 1.80 ERA work over 26 games in the 2011 season.