A Little Concern, A Little Relief

Friday ( 4-3 win )

Hero: Yadier Molina.  Smart thinking in the eighth to tag out the right runner, game winning double in the ninth for his fourth hit.  Man does it all.

Goat: Ryan Franklin.  All of the relievers were up for this, but when you are the closer, you can’t come in and let the tying run score on a wild pitch.  You just can’t.

Notes: Jason Motte gets no one out.  Trever Miller gets a wild double play, then hits two batters. Games against Pittsburgh shouldn’t be this dramatic.  At least Matt Holliday had four hits, even if he did overslide home and deny the Cards another run.

Saturday ( 2-0 loss )

Hero: Jaime Garcia.  His pitch count was a bit elevated and he allowed a few extra hits, but still, one run in six innings with seven strikeouts deserves more than what he got.

Goat: Skip Schumaker.  Nobody really stood out–lots of eh performances–but when the leadoff guy goes o-fer, it breaks all ties.

Notes: What can you say about this game?  If you want to worry about the Cardinal offense, this was Exhibit A.

Sunday (11-4 win)

Hero: Nick Stavinoha.  Lots of good offensive lines in this one, but Stavinoha drove in two and went 1-3, just a slight bit better than some others.

Goat: Brendan Ryan.  Did get a hit, but his error with two outs in the ninth didn’t help Blake Hawksworth out any.

Notes: Good to see things get clicking, but Pittsburgh helped out a lot with eight walks.

In my last entry, I professed to be a little less concerned about the lack of scoring that the Cardinals have shown.  After this last series, and notwithstanding the outpouring from yesterday, I’m starting to wonder if maybe I should worry a bit more.

When this team goes into Pittsburgh, it almost always dominates.  Granted, the Pirates don’t have Ian Snell to kick around anymore, but it’s never been limited to one pitcher.  While they did have a couple of double-digit hit games, I still think that, against a team like the Pirates, they should have gotten more than four on Friday and definitely shouldn’t have been shut out on Saturday.

If you want to be positive, though, they did win a series with minimal contributions from Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday.  Holliday broke out a little with four hits on Friday, then sat the next couple of days while dealing with his injured groin.  After today’s day off, he’ll have had three days of rest, which hopefully will be enough.  Albert had a hitting streak snapped in the first game, then was pitched around much of the rest of the series.  For more on this, check out Pitchers Hit Eighth’s contribution to Baseball Digest today .

So should the team be concerned?  I think so.  I don’t think it’s panic or anything like that, but there should be some thought given to why this is happening and what to do about hitting with runners in scoring position.  That said, this drought somewhat corresponds with a lack of home runs (none since last Monday).  If a couple of these hits this week had been long balls, we might be singing a different tune.

We aren’t to the fire McGwire stage nor is the team in any danger of losing the NL Central, but it’s definitely something that we don’t want getting worse.  With Houston and Cincinnati this week, the bats should be working.  If they aren’t, this time next week may be time for some more drastic measures.

My contribution to Baseball Digest will be up this afternoon and I’m your co-host (with Justin from Intangiball ) on this week’s UCB Radio Hour , where we’ll be joined by James from Astros County to talk about that series.  I’ll probably have some exchange with James up here at the blog this week as well.  Enjoy the off day!