{"id":1482,"date":"2009-08-05T07:52:33","date_gmt":"2009-08-05T14:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/05\/el-hombre-is-back\/"},"modified":"2009-08-05T07:52:33","modified_gmt":"2009-08-05T14:52:33","slug":"el-hombre-is-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/05\/el-hombre-is-back\/","title":{"rendered":"El Hombre Is Back"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don’t think too many would argue that Albert Pujols<\/strong> got back on track last night.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody would say that it wasn’t a welcome sight, especially in a game that, a month ago, the Cardinals would have quietly lost.<\/p>\n

You’ll have to forgive me forgetting that the team actually has an offense now.\u00c2\u00a0 I was out of the house last night and continued to check the score on my phone.\u00c2\u00a0 The 3-1 deficit concerned me, especially with Johan Santana on the mound, but to my delight they rallied and went ahead 4-3.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course, the next thing I see is a 7-4 Mets lead.\u00c2\u00a0 Knowing the Cubs were winning, I resigned myself to a game deficit in the standings.<\/p>\n

Last night<\/a>, though, showed what this offense can do<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 It can be relentless coming at a team, with few obvious holes up and down the lineup.\u00c2\u00a0 The days of going months without coming back from a three-run deficit are over.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, even with an early lead for the opposition, it doesn’t feel like the game is over until the last at-bats.<\/p>\n

A game last night helps in relieving the fears of Cardinal Nation about a Pujols slump.\u00c2\u00a0 When you couple that with the story that John Rooney told on the radio last night, it makes you feel even better.<\/p>\n

Rooney said that in BP last night, Pujols was having trouble getting them out of the cage area.\u00c2\u00a0 Then, all of the sudden, he put seven or eight lasers together.\u00c2\u00a0 It looked like something clicked for him and the results seem to indicate that as well.\u00c2\u00a0 National League, you’ve had your few days off.\u00c2\u00a0 Commence cowering again.<\/p>\n

Pretty surprising that it came to needing to get serious<\/a>, though.\u00c2\u00a0 Joel Pineiro<\/strong> had his biggest hiccup of the year in a place where you’d least expect it.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s owned the Mets lately and, with his season going the way it was, I was surprised when he gave up three runs, much less continued to allow the Mets to score.\u00c2\u00a0 I mean, he didn’t give up seven runs the whole month of July (5 starts).\u00c2\u00a0 Blips happen, though, and you hope he shakes it off and gets back to his regularly scheduled season against Pittsburgh on Sunday.<\/p>\n

You have to note that Todd Wellemeyer had a successful outing last night, allowing no runs in two innings.\u00c2\u00a0 He did allow three baserunners, though, and I didn’t see him to know if he was in command or if he was able to tightrope out of things.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t expect you’ll see him in close games if there are other options real soon, but maybe he can get to that level.<\/p>\n

Speaking of an offensive revitalization, as we were earlier, Ryan Ludwick won the NL Player of the Month<\/a> award for July.\u00c2\u00a0 As the article notes, with his month and Pujols winning it twice, only one month this year has the award gone somewhere else than St. Louis.\u00c2\u00a0 Albert must have noticed, so he’s starting his push to get it back for August.<\/p>\n

The Cardinals also have shut Troy Glaus down<\/a> and odds are he won’t see St. Louis again as a Cardinal. We should have known the talk about his return was probably too good to be true.\u00c2\u00a0 Though it’s too bad we couldn’t have him on the field next week when Scott Rolen and the Reds come to town!<\/p>\n

Cards have an early game today (one that will be live-blogged by Fox Sports Midwest<\/a>) as Kyle Lohse goes up against Jonathon Niese.\u00c2\u00a0 As a pitcher that the Cards have never seen before, it could be a long game.\u00c2\u00a0 Niese has only pitched in four games this season at the MLB level and has had varying levels of success.\u00c2\u00a0 Lohse allowed two runs (one earned) in five innings against the Mets in April, though he did allow eight hits and a walk in that span as well.\u00c2\u00a0 He alternated good and bad starts in July, so it’s time for him to break the pattern and put together two good ones.<\/p>\n

UCB Radio Hour will be on tonight at the regular place over at Blog Talk Radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Nick from Pitchers Hit Eighth<\/a> and Josh from Redbirds Row<\/a> will be your hosts, so give them a call between 9:30 and 10:30 Central at 646-929-1758 and talk Cardinal baseball!<\/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":"

Don’t think too many would argue that Albert Pujols got back on track last night.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody would say that it wasn’t a welcome sight, especially in a game that, a month ago, the Cardinals would have quietly lost.<\/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-1482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482","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=1482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}