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…
Why does (did?) Francisco Pena keep starting at catcher?
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,…
WAINO BACK
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,…
Cardinals salvage final game of Tigers series, ought to do better next series
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…
A musical look at the Detroit Tigers–a series preview
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…
Giving and accepting blame for MLB’s service time problem
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…
Cardinals create one-series winning streak with 7-6 victory over Nationals
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…
Adam Wainwright deserves a chance to start
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…
Let’s not talk about this afternoon’s game
Normally, we post a recap to St. Louis Cardinals games on this website. For whatever reason, today's game just kind of slipped through the cracks. It's probably for the best.
Natitude! Sunglasses! A Cardinals-Nationals series preview
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…
