{"id":1480,"date":"2009-08-04T09:05:24","date_gmt":"2009-08-04T16:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/04\/taking-a-breather\/"},"modified":"2009-08-04T09:05:24","modified_gmt":"2009-08-04T16:05:24","slug":"taking-a-breather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/04\/taking-a-breather\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking a Breather"},"content":{"rendered":"

While there are problems with not playing, including the inconvenient fact that the Cubs did play and win, tying the Cardinals for first, St. Louis really needed the day off<\/a> yesterday.<\/p>\n

With the Washington rainout of May rescheduled for their only off day, this team had gone since the All-Star break playing every day.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s 17 days in a row, and as much as a couple of moves gave them a little boost, having a day to not have to go through their game routine probably helped even more.\u00c2\u00a0 A short series with the Mets, playing tonight and tomorrow afternoon, then another off day should have them ready to go when they face Pittsburgh and head home for Cincinnati and San Diego.<\/p>\n

Of course, if career numbers hold up, they might as well take tonight off as well, because Johan Santana is going for the Mets.\u00c2\u00a0 The Cardinals were only able to muster two runs (one earned) off of him five weeks ago<\/a>, but that’s an onslaught compared to his career numbers<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina are about the only ones with any success against the Mets lefty, and Molina’s really has small sample size written all over it.\u00c2\u00a0 Houston and Milwaukee have both touched Santana for five runs this year, so he’s human, but it’ll be tough to prove that.<\/p>\n

St. Louis counters with a pretty good pitcher of their own in Joel Pineiro.\u00c2\u00a0 Pineiro may not have the gaudy career numbers against New York that Santana does against the Cards, but he’s held his own<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 If he can avoid David Wright, who’s hitting .357 against him, he probably will do OK.\u00c2\u00a0 Pineiro has had some great games against the Mets in the past, including a combined line in two starts against them this year of 17 innings, 1.06 ERA, .151 BAA, and a 2-0 record.\u00c2\u00a0 He makes them put it in play, though, with three walks and a strikeout in those 17 innings.<\/p>\n

The NL Central looks to be between the Cards and the Cubs.\u00c2\u00a0 Milwaukee and Houston are still four back and within striking distance, but right now it looks like the rivalry will win out.\u00c2\u00a0 The Cardinals have a little easier schedule<\/a> and more off days, plus exactly half of their 54 games remaining at home, so they are lined up to make a run.<\/p>\n

Daniel Shoptaw is the founder of “C70 At The Bat,” where he regularly writes about his beloved St. Louis Cardinals.\u00c2\u00a0 You can find more of his work here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While there are problems with not playing, including the inconvenient fact that the Cubs did play and win, tying the Cardinals for first, St. Louis really needed the day off yesterday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":347,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/347"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}