{"id":1625,"date":"2009-09-17T15:08:53","date_gmt":"2009-09-17T22:08:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/17\/stumbling-down-the-stretch\/"},"modified":"2009-09-17T15:08:53","modified_gmt":"2009-09-17T22:08:53","slug":"stumbling-down-the-stretch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2009\/09\/17\/stumbling-down-the-stretch\/","title":{"rendered":"Stumbling Down the Stretch"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like I said last night<\/a>, who would have thought going into this home stand that the only game the Cardinals would win would be the game started by Todd Wellemeyer?<\/p>\n

The Cardinals again struggled to put anything resembling a consistent offense on the field yesterday, piling up hits but never with a runner in scoring position.\u00c2\u00a0 The Marlins continued to give the Redbirds chances.\u00c2\u00a0 They just wouldn’t take them.<\/p>\n

Still, with a game<\/a> that had them down 3-0 before they even batted due to a barrage of singles, to be able to put the tying run on first in the ninth with one out says something about the resiliency of the team.\u00c2\u00a0 There are times in the past where that would have been a game where they packed it in and just took the loss.\u00c2\u00a0 Not anymore.<\/p>\n

You do have a little bit of concern about the effectiveness of Joel Pineiro.\u00c2\u00a0 After a long string of low-run outings, he’s now posted a 4.62 ERA in September.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether that’s some of the law of averages coming into play, where some of those grounders are getting through instead of being caught, I don’t know.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s not walking any more batters (5 in 25.1 innings), so command doesn’t seem to be the problem, unless the sinker is staying in the strike zone more.<\/p>\n

Tough to know where to go with the Hero and the Goat, because there are some decent choices for both tags.\u00c2\u00a0 On the upside, Skip Schumaker got two hits in the leadoff slot and Albert Pujols got two hits plus drove in a run with that HBP in the ninth.\u00c2\u00a0 I think I’ll go with Yadier Molina<\/strong>, though, for his two hits and breaking the scoring seal.<\/p>\n

On the down side, you have Pineiro, who did allow four runs and ten hits in five and a third, but settled in after a rough first.\u00c2\u00a0 You have Rick Ankiel, who went zero for three with two strikeouts in front of Pujols.\u00c2\u00a0 The worst, though, probably has to be Matt Holliday<\/strong>, who did get one hit, but left seven on base and rapped into the game-ending double play.\u00c2\u00a0 Been a rough homestand for Holliday, but hopefully he and the rest of the team can gear up for the Cubs this weekend.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, Milwaukee did the Cards a favor and the magic number now stands at 9 even with the loss.\u00c2\u00a0 I really hope that the Brew Crew can win this afternoon in Wrigley to get it down to 8.\u00c2\u00a0 Besides the obvious, if they don’t, then we’ll likely skip right over 6 in the magic number countdown.\u00c2\u00a0 And this year, of all years, skipping six would just seem so wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 Seriously wrong<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow it’s UCB Project Day!\u00c2\u00a0 Been a while since we have had one of these, since we skipped August and July was the live blog.\u00c2\u00a0 Tomorrow, the participating blogs will put out their rankings of the Top 7 Prospects in the Cardinal system.\u00c2\u00a0 Which may be an appropriate day, as Memphis could close out the PCL Championship tomorrow evening after their win last night<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 So be sure to check them all out!<\/p>\n

Daniel Shoptaw is the founder of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153C70 At The Bat,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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":"

Like I said last night, who would have thought going into this home stand that the only game the Cardinals would win would be the game started by Todd Wellemeyer?<\/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-1625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625","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=1625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}