For thirteen days, I assumed that Adam Wainwright's final appearance in a St. Louis Cardinals uniform would be a mediocre outing on a Friday afternoon at Wrigley Field, surrendering four earned runs, including a home run (though with perfectly fine true-outcome totals of one walk and seven strikeouts), in an 8-4 loss to the hated…
October baseball is upon us once again, and for the third consecutive season, the St. Louis Cardinals are not involved. This is only the second time since the late 90s that the Cardinals have gone three straight years without a postseason berth, so it's understandable why some fans are getting a little impatient. And for…
Over a 30 day stretch within my last five weeks writing for Viva El Birdos, I wrote 46 posts. I don't know what possessed me to count the exact number. I knew it was a lot. During those thirty days, there were exactly two in which I didn't publish anything. By this point, I was…
The Los Angeles Dodgers scored four runs in the top of the ninth inning this afternoon at San Francisco's AT&T Park to defeat the San Francisco Giants 10-6, clinching at least a Wild Card berth and in turn, eliminating the St. Louis Cardinals from postseason contention in 2018. The Cardinals did their part earlier this…
Pre-game: After a four game losing streak, the Cardinals find themselves in a must-win situation. When your back is against the wall, you focus on what you can control first, which is win one game. Then pray that the Giants help you by beating the Dodgers today and tomorrow to force a game 163. It's…
One win. One stupid additional win at any point during the first 159 games of the 2018 Cardinals season and this final series with the Cubs would feel remarkably different. On the other hand, I suppose, turn one of their 87 wins into a loss and things for all intents and purposes would be finished…
Last Sunday, with the Cardinals' odds of their season extending beyond this Sunday very good (or at least the odds of it not seeming like a long shot by today being extremely good), I decided to hammer out my hypothetical playoff roster. I was attending the next three games at Busch Stadium and wouldn't have…
Heading into the final week of the regular season the St. Louis Cardinals had the luxury of controlling their own playoff destiny. If they simply took care of their own business in these remaining six games, they wouldn't have to worry about what anyone else did. But after two devastating losses to the Milwaukee Brewers…
Editor's note: A few weeks ago, an anonymous reader e-mailed me to submit this post for consideration for publication on St. Louis Bullpen. This isn't normally how our writing process works, but this was too interesting to simply ignore. Some of the information is out of date, because of when it was written. The writer…
So last night looked like it was going to be an amazing come from behind victory. Then it rained. And then it wasn't. But, it's time to get back up on the horse and play again today! Austin Gomber faces off against Gio Gonzalez (whom I did not know was a member of the Milwaukee…
Marcell Ozuna's first few months as a St. Louis Cardinal were disappointing. He didn't hit well and he made a few ugly, high-profile defensive lapses which tarnished the reputation that comes with being a defending Gold Glove winner. But particularly in the second half of the season, Ozuna has come around. He has been an…
Author's Note: As I thought about last night's recap, I regretted some of my more strident, and at times frankly Trump-like, characterizations of personalities and events from the game. I know that you fine consumers of baseball information have a number of options from which to choose when seeking Cardinals information and analysis, and I'm…
I find series previews to be simultaneously timely and unnecessary, and I've always had an uneasy relationship with writing them. I don't think that's that much to be said about matchups, and particularly once the season has developed, any fan who cares enough to read a series preview knows generally what the St. Louis Cardinals…
After besting Madison Bumgarner and Dereck Rodriguez with, on paper, inferior starting pitchers on Friday and Saturday, Sunday afternoon's battle between the St. Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants seems like an easy win. But this is baseball, a very stupid sport, so nothing could be assured. Here were the starting lineups. https://twitter.com/SFGiants/status/1043898666795204609 https://twitter.com/Cardinals/status/1043892834141720576 I've been…
Good Waino is still a thing, Tyler O'Neill is a bad, bad man.
In the 1987, the St. Louis Cardinals faced the San Francisco Giants in the National League Championship Series, and in seven games, they emerged victorious. This is surely a treasured memory for Cardinals fans who remember it, particularly given how the other three postseason series featuring the Cardinals and Giants have gone. In 2002, 2012,…
I have learned now that while those who speak about one's miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more. -Dmitri Young, possibly Here’s the thing when your favorite baseball team blows a 3-1 playoff series lead: You can feel it happening, in fact you KNOW it’s happening well ahead of time. Usually just a…
Today, the St. Louis Cardinals played the Atlanta Braves in a game that began at 11:10 a.m. St. Louis time. Normally, I'm all for daytime baseball if it's on a weekend or a day when I have no prior commitments, but...today is Wednesday. I can't really watch baseball at my job, especially when the game…
New York Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom is having one of the best seasons in Major League Baseball this year. He is a strong candidate for the National League Cy Young Award on the merits of his Wins Above Replacement marks; by the WAR measure used by FanGraphs, deGrom is the single-best pitcher in baseball this…
The Cardinals are riding a two game win streak coming into tonight's matchup with the Braves. Austin Gomber is on the mound as he looks for redemption after an early exit in his last start. Lineups https://twitter.com/Cardinals/status/1042165168678096903 https://twitter.com/Braves/status/1042131750439346176 Game Notes Only one hit for both sides through the first three innings. Gomber and Anibal Sanchez…
There are, if you want to be literal and frankly very obnoxious about it, thousands of trades that the St. Louis Cardinals did not make at this season's non-waiver trade deadline. They did not trade Luke Weaver for Mike Trout. They did not trade Greg Garcia for Mike Trout. They did not trade a player…
When I was a kid, the Atlanta Braves were a juggernaut. Yes, they only won one World Series during that time, and I don't even remember it (it is the most recent World Series I do not remember at all), but every year, they were in contention. In 1990, the Braves finished in last place,…
All right, Adam Wainwright is pitching, Matt Vasgersian is announcing, and I'm admittedly not super excited about this game at all. Not gonna get drunk like during yesterday's game, but gonna be grumpy probably. Buckle up! Here are the lineups. https://twitter.com/Dodgers/status/1041435555265896449 https://twitter.com/Cardinals/status/1041446672830787584 Wainwright retired Joc Pederson (I guess in light of what happened with Vontae…
So I wasn't originally supposed to recap this game. I was supposed to sit in my apartment, laying low and probably having my fair share of adult beverages because all I have to do today is attend a wedding this evening and I'm getting a ride for it. As it turns out, I'm recapping, but…
Although baseball is a game where players come in many shapes and sizes, we can admit that when we think of baseball players, we think of certain molds. Tall, lanky pitchers, statuesque outfielders, small, scrappy infielders, and stocky catchers- these are the typical archetypes we fall back on, and by in large, these archetypes tend…
The Cardinals begin a critical four game series late in the season against the Dodgers tonight. Currently the Dodgers are the most imminent threat to the Cardinals' playoff hopes, sitting two games behind in the wild card standings. A dominant series by the Cards could put them back even further. Tonight we will see a…
The Los Angeles Dodgers have had a relatively shaky season in 2018 (if you're looking for an actual analysis of the 2018 Dodgers, I did it a few weeks ago), but they are generally a very successful franchise. They haven't won a World Series in thirty years but they have, with only sporadic intermissions, been…
At this point in the year, the St. Louis Cardinals will take any series win they can find as they try to scratch and claw their way into the postseason. Taking 2 of 3 from a divisional foe is certainly better than the alternative. Still, the nature of today's 4-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates…
Adam Wainwright was given another start after mixed results against the Pirates. We looked closer at his game to see what we could find.
Big City brought the Cardinals back from the dead last night on a eighth inning bomb and Paul DeJong sealed the deal in the ninth to give the Cardinals a win. Miles Mikolas is on the mound against the Pirates as the Cardinals go for the series victory. Follow along! Lineups https://twitter.com/Pirates/status/1039642269295501313 https://twitter.com/Cardinals/status/1039619642829037568 Game…
When Yadier Molina became the full-time starting catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals in 2005, the organization initially lined him up with somewhat typical backup catchers. They weren't stars, by any means, but backup catchers rarely are. So the likes of Einar Diaz, Gary Bennett, and Jason LaRue were brought around to back up Molina,…
Adam Wainwright is a central part of our shared experience as St. Louis Cardinals fans. He and Yadier Molina are the two most tenured members of the team by nearly six years. There is something comforting about Adam Wainwright on the mound, even when he's bad. But I like it better when he's good. Tonight,…
Adam Wainwright gets the ball tonight in St. Louis against the Pittsburgh Pirates, his first start since May. Honestly, I wasn't expecting to see Wainwright ever start a game for the Cardinals again, and certainly not while the team is making a postseason push, no less. The very thought is equally exciting and terrifying, but…
As a fan of the late St. Louis Rams, I am used to being wildly disappointed at noon on the first NFL Sunday of the year, and thus am ready to hate what I see at Comerica Park this afternoon. Here are the lineups, which for some reason include Yairo Munoz playing center field. https://twitter.com/Cardinals/status/1038811799209082880…
Pregame: The Brewers keep winning and the Cardinals are trying to keep up in the wild card race. The Dodgers and Diamondbacks are right on their heels. I'm eager to see a victory after a tough loss last night. The Tigers are celebrating their 1968 World Series title over the Cardinals by wearing throwback uniforms,…
In spite of the last six weeks, there still stands a decent chance that the Cardinals won’t make the postseason this year. That would mean three straight seasons without the playoffs, the first time that’s happened in these parts since 1997 to 1999. Those were some mediocre years. Those teams averaged 79 wins per season,…
This weekend, the St. Louis Cardinals will play three games against the Detroit Tigers, a team they have not played since 2015, when the Tigers won two of three games at Busch Stadium. I attended the Saturday and Sunday games. In one of the games, the Tigers needed extra innings for Peak David Price to…
Entering the 2018 season, third baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. of the Toronto Blue Jays system was among the top prospects in baseball. He was considered a future superstar, having torn the cover off the ball in 2017 while splitting time between A and high-A ball. But MLB Opening Day 2018 was less than two weeks…
The St. Louis Cardinals entered tonight's game against the Washington Nationals with a one-series losing streak that they hoped to reverse by defeating a Nationals team running out the clock on the Bryce Harper era. Here were the lineups. https://twitter.com/Cardinals/status/1037437751208144897 https://twitter.com/Nationals/status/1037419763302064130 While one could easily have made the case that the Cardinals lineup did not…
I’ll be honest: when the St. Louis Cardinals named Mike Shildt interim manager following Mike Matheny’s firing in July, I didn’t really give much thought to the long-term implications of the move. I figured that Shildt would get the team to the end of the season with no playoffs, Bill DeWitt would thank him for…
Fresh off two of their most frustrating losses of the year, the St. Louis Cardinals needed to get back on track tonight in game two of their series with the Washington Nationals. It took a little longer than this blogger would've liked, but tonight went a lot better than the last few games, as the…
As my mom always says, better late than never... After stumbling to drop the last two games of our homestand, losing our third consecutive series against the Reds and our first overall series since July, the Cardinals needed to get off on the right foot in Washington, D.C. against the formerly formidable Nationals. The pitching…
The idea that a baseball player is entitled to anything beyond the salary which he has been promised from a baseball team has never been a notion that made much sense to me. And I say this as somebody who is generally fiercely pro-labor: when Adam Wainwright signed his current five-year, $97.5 million contract which…
It's the end of the Washington Nationals' pseudo-dynastic hold on the NL East as we know it and I feel...partially guilty on behalf of the St. Louis Cardinals. The beginning of this run, whether we truly grasped it at the time, was in 2009, when the Nationals drafted San Diego State starting pitcher Stephen Strasburg…
I want a holiday in the sun, and this fine Sunday is a De Facto Saturday. I want to see some history, in the form of a franchise-record 11th consecutive series victory. These are Sex Pistols references. The St. Louis Cardinals are playing the Cincinnati Reds at Busch Stadium and I am going to let…
The Cardinals enter play today very much in the hunt, both for the Division and the Wild Card. Going 8-2 in their last 10 games hasn't allowed the team to gain much ground, however; the Cubs have also gone 8-2, while the Brewers have gone 7-3. The Cardinals are four games back of the division…
Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto is back, but despite the Reds offense suddenly looking a lot more competent ahead of this weekend's series against the St. Louis Cardinals, this ain't exactly The Big Red Machine. The Big Red Machine, the nickname given to the Cincinnati Reds (particularly its offense) in the 1970s, peaked in…
The Cards play the Pirates in an ultimate showdown of pitchers entering the game with ERA's of 3.56. We shall see who will win tonight's ERA wars. Tonight you have O'Neill, Bader, and Martinez in the outfield, while Carpenter, Dejong, G. Garcia, and Adams line the infield. A win will keep the streak of series'…
Aesthetically, Matt Carpenter has checked every possible box for the label of "fan favorite" for the St. Louis Cardinals. He is a classic overachiever--he was drafted in the 13th round at age 23 out of Texas Christian University, signing for a famously low bonus of $1,000 (this has much more to do with his lack…
