{"id":1504,"date":"2009-08-11T08:23:12","date_gmt":"2009-08-11T15:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/11\/cardinals-keep-pushing\/"},"modified":"2009-08-11T08:23:12","modified_gmt":"2009-08-11T15:23:12","slug":"cardinals-keep-pushing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/08\/11\/cardinals-keep-pushing\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals Keep Pushing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another day, another win<\/a> and another Cubs loss.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m pretty sure Cardinal fans could get used to this.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s nice to have that three-game cushion at the top of the standings.<\/p>\n

It’s been a while since the Cards put four wins together.\u00c2\u00a0 You have to go back to May 19-23, when they swept the Cubs and won the first two against the Royals, to find a streak that long.\u00c2\u00a0 As constructed, though, this team could continue to do this for most of the month.<\/p>\n

Ironically, the last of those wins in that May streak was the last time Kyle Lohse<\/strong> won a game, until last night.\u00c2\u00a0 I think you have to temper the “he’s back!” talk because it was the Reds, who aren’t exactly an offensive juggernaut right at the moment, but it definitely was a step in the right direction.\u00c2\u00a0 Adding him to the already potent rotation could have the Cardinals on a final kick that would rival some of those second-half surges of the early part of the decade, plus give them even more options in October.<\/p>\n

Have to give Rick Ankiel<\/strong> the Goat tag last night.\u00c2\u00a0 He had good numbers coming in against Johnny Cueto, but with Cueto leaving early he only got one AB against him.\u00c2\u00a0 No hits, four at-bats, two left on.<\/p>\n

Quite a bit of off the field news from yesterday.\u00c2\u00a0 The biggest was the return of Scott Rolen to St. Louis.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve always felt like Rolen was a class act and that, as much as I like Tony LaRussa, it might have been best to keep Rolen instead.\u00c2\u00a0 Part of that was reinforced with the story yesterday that Rolen made the effort to find LaRussa to talk<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 It sounds like Rolen really thinks fondly of his time in St. Louis.\u00c2\u00a0 It’ll be interesting to see if he is involved with the Cardinal organization after he retires.<\/p>\n

After all the workup and hoopla, it turns out Todd Wellemeyer won’t be pitching tonight<\/a> after all.\u00c2\u00a0 Instead, he’ll be placed on the disabled list with his elbow problem, clearing the way for Mitchell Boggs to be recalled and start.\u00c2\u00a0 Some people think this is just a convienent way for Wellemeyer not to pitch and LaRussa to save face.\u00c2\u00a0 Given the fact that he apparently had a great bullpen and then the elbow flared up, it may be that the mechanics he needs he hasn’t had, which caused the problem when he found them.<\/p>\n

Whatever the reasoning, most Cardinal fans are pretty happy to see Boggs take the mound instead of Wellemeyer.\u00c2\u00a0 Hopefully it can’t be any worse!<\/p>\n

Shaquille O’Neal<\/a> will be throwing out the first pitch tonight, as part of the activities surrounding his new reality show.\u00c2\u00a0 (Depending on your political persuasion and point of view, it could be argued that Albert Pujols is making a step up in his batterymates.)\u00c2\u00a0 Shaq will take on Pujols Thursday on the Cardinals’ day off.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m interested to see at least this episode of the show when it airs later in the year.<\/p>\n

Both pitchers tonight are pretty much unknown to the opposition.\u00c2\u00a0 The Reds are throwing Justin Lehr, a guy that my father-in-law, a pretty avid Reds fan, knew nothing about until a couple of weeks ago.\u00c2\u00a0 Lehr’s definitely had a good couple of games<\/a>, but his career ERA approaches five.\u00c2\u00a0 Boggs has an ERA around three and a quarter right now, though his WHIP is on the high side.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, with the offensively challenged Reds in town, he may be OK.<\/p>\n

Might be a low scoring game tonight, might be a high scoring one.\u00c2\u00a0 Just never know when you have these kind of pitchers going.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ll just have to watch and find out!<\/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":"

Another day, another win and another Cubs loss.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m pretty sure Cardinal fans could get used to this.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s nice to have that three-game cushion at the top of the standings.<\/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-1504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504","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=1504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}