Cardinals Stumble to Start Final Stretch

It’s meaningless baseball, right?  The Cards are going to the playoffs, but without a lot of things going their way, there’s not much they can do otherwise.  The odds are long that they’ll catch the Dodgers for the best record and, given the way that the Rockies have handled the team, being second might not be all that advantageous either. That said, and even given the fact that the Dodgers got blasted by the Pirates just a couple of days ago, you never like seeing your #3 postseason starter get lit up by a team that’s well under .500, even if that team has been playing much better of late.

Joel Pineiroisn’t supposed to have those kind of outings.  He’d only given up seven home runs all year going into this game, then allowed three in six innings.  Granted, he allowed them to good hitters, but Pineiro is supposed to be the master of getting the ground ball, so any ball that goes over the wall isn’t in the plans.

Even if the offense had been clicking, it would have been hard for them to overcome seven runs.  It’s pretty obvious that the offense isn’t clicking.  It’s about time to start doing a serious search for it.  They had a chance, down four, bases loaded and Albert Pujols at the plate.  He had a good drive, but it was still feet from going out.  A sacrifice fly is nice, of course, and it broke up the shutout, but Matt Holliday wasn’t able to do any more with two on and two out.

As a side note, you hope that Pujols is saving up his power barrage.  After his two homer day against Milwaukee on the 9th of this month, he’s been stuck at 47 homers.  Tonight is three weeks since he went deep–which shows how great he was going since he still leads the league in long balls.

Someone on one of the boards said something about Pineiro pitching his way out of the postseason rotation.  Which is fairly ludicrous, since he’s been one of the reasons the Cards are where they are today and he’s not be Todd Wellemeyer-level bad.  Couple that with the fact that, if you pull Pineiro, you have to go with Kyle Lohse AND John Smoltz in the rotation and I think you see that isn’t happening.

That said, Pineiro has a 4.58 ERA since August 1.  Right now, he’s scheduled for the Closing Day start against Milwaukee.  If he does make that start–and I would hope that Tony LaRussa will consider skipping him–I expect he’ll only go two or three innings, unless he’s leading and works quickly, in which case he might go five so he can have a chance at the win.

On the positive side, David Freesehit his first major league home run, adding to his push to make the postseason roster.  I still don’t know that he’ll make it, but apparently he’s under consideration and getting your first longball out of the way couldn’t hurt the situation anyway.  Also nice to see Holliday getting two hits in the game.Troy Glaus got a couple of at-bats last night and seems to feel fine .  However, you have to think that his odds of making the postseason roster are pretty slim as well.  He always seems to be coming up with an injury every time he makes some progress and isn’t able to get into a regular playing rhythm.  I agree that the potential of Glaus, with his past power, would be a nice thing off the bench, but I don’t think the Cards can count on getting that.

Another person who’s doing OK, Adam Wainwright.  He doesn’t seem to have too many ill effects from his 130 pitch marathon, though LaRussa is giving him an extra day off and he’ll have another extra day between his last regular start and his first playoff start.

A couple of links.  First, More Hardball has their own Hall of Fame called Hardball Heroes.  Today, they’ve “inducted” former Cardinal catcher Ted Simmons.  Check it out when you have the time.  Also, my monthly piece at Baseball Reflections is up today .  Finally, if you’ve not heard this prediction from Mike Blowers and the result, you really have to .

UCB Radio Hour tonight , with myself and Mike from Stan Musial’s Stance .  We’ll also have Joel from Red Reporter on to talk about Cincinnati and their plans for the offseason.  Call in after tonight’s game and talk some baseball.

John Smoltz vs. Bronson Arroyo tonight.  Hopefully the bats will break out and get rolling toward October!

Daniel Shoptaw is the founder of “C70 At The Bat,” where he regularly writes about his beloved St. Louis Cardinals.  You can find more of his work here .