Archives for June 2021

The ball left Eduardo Escobar’s bat at 98.7 miles per hour.  It would be the third hardest hit ball by the Arizona Diamondbacks on the evening, and it would provide the evening’s first turning point.

Everything is so magnified in a one-run game.  In this one, Cardinal starter Carlos Martinez walked the first batter of the game – a bad omen.  Carlos had walked 7 in his previous start, and it was clear that after several shaky appearances, he was fighting here to hold on to his rotation spot.

Escobar came to the plate after Pavin Smith (Arizona’s second batter) had popped out.  He had fallen behind in the count, 1-2, when he turned on Carlos’ change-up and drilled it toward right field – but right at second baseman Edmundo Sosa, who not only gloved the ball for the second out, but quickly tossed the ball to first baseman Paul Goldschmidt when he noticed that Josh Rojas (the runner at first) had strayed too far from the base.  Instead of another complicated inning for Martinez, the first was suddenly over after just 12 pitches.

The Diamondbacks would put a runner in scoring position in three of the first five innings of the game, but would fail to score any of them.  After going 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position on Monday, they were just 2-for-10 on Tuesday, with the second of those hits providing another flashpoint for the game.

Eighth inning, Cards up 3-2.  Leading off for the D-Backs, David Peralta reaches when his grounder to second kicks out of Sosa’s glove.  He is replaced by pinch-runner Tim Locastro.  There is still no one out as Cardinal pitcher Alex Reyes promptly balks Locastro to second.  Then Josh VanMeter rolls a little grounder toward the shortstop position. 

But there is no one there.  Everyone except third baseman Nolan Arenado had shifted to the right side of the infield, and Arenado was near the left field line leaving a yawning void where the shortstop would normally play.  But as the ball trickled into left field, for some reason Locastro didn’t score.  He advanced to third, but (with no one out) he proceeded no further.

And now, he never would.  Reyes responded by striking out Christian Walker and turning a daring double-play on a tapper back to the mound off the bat of Stephen Vogt.

These are the things that happen to you when your team is 2-19 in one-run games – and, incredibly, that is Arizona’s record in these contests.

The Cardinals have worn their share of frustration as well this season, but have held their own in one-run games.  Their problems have been staying close enough in games to pull off one-run victories.  They are now 10-8 on the season in these contests.

And they have now won consecutive games for the first time since they swept Miami from June 14-16, twelve games ago.

Is this the start of something?  Time will tell.  After Arizona and Colorado (St Louis’ next opponent) they will play their next 13 games against the Giants and the Cubs.  Cincinnati and Cleveland line up after them.  By this time next month, we should have a better idea of who these Cardinals are.

Arenado

Speaking of magnified moments, Arenado provided two of them.  In the bottom of the fifth inning, his two-run home run off the left field foul pole broke the scoreless tie.  In the top of the sixth, he made a key defensive play.  Josh Rojas began the inning squibbing a grounder up the middle that neither Sosa nor Paul DeJong at shortstop could come up with.  Pavin Smith then threatened to beat the shift with a bounding grounder of his own that was headed for the left field line.  Arenado was able to chase the ball down from behind, and, while falling toward the foul line, managed to deliver a strong and accurate throw to nip the runner at first.  Escobar then dropped a soft fly ball into short right to deliver the runner (Rojas had advanced to second on the previous grounder).  It was the only run scored off of Martinez.  The next batter (Peralta) drove a flyball deep enough into center that it would have driven in the tying run – if Nolan hadn’t made that play on Smith.

So, on the evening, Arenado was a plus-3 in a game his team won by only one run.  This was not a singular occurrence.  Nolan is far and away the team’s most productive bat in one-run games.  Arenado is now hitting .328 this year in one-run games (20 for 61) with half of those hits for extra bases (6 doubles, 4 home runs).  He has 12 runs batted in and a .623 slugging percentage in one-run games this season.

DeJong

Paul continues to search for his swing.  Hitless in 3 at bats last night, DeJong is battling through a month that has seen him hit .148 (8 of 54). 

NoteBook

St Louis has now scored the first run in four of the last five games.

With two wins against Arizona, the Cards now have as many wins in two games of this series as they managed in their three previous series combined.

Arenado’s home run proved to be the game-winning RBI.  With 9 on the season, Nolan has tied Yadier Molina for the team lead.  Paul Goldschmidt is just behind with 8.

My Designated Hitter Rant

Every year now, baseball purists in the National League are continuously threatened with the permanent infliction of the designated hitter.  Last year, I responded with an extensive rant against the DH.  While trying to update that document, I managed to delete it.  So, I have re-written it here.  The hope is to set forth a reasonable argument for keeping the DH far, far away from National League parks.  I encourage you to read it and pass it along to other like-minded fans of this great old game.

The play didn’t make any of the highlight packages – but that’s not surprising.  Bunts rarely do.  But, in a contest befitting the teams with the two worst June records in the National League, it would be a garden variety bunt that would prove to be the play of the game.

It was the seventh inning of a 1-1 game.  St Louis’ Edmundo Sosa led off the bottom of the inning with a double, and Tommy Edman bunted him to third. 

And here we go again.

It would be Dylan Carlson at the plate with that runner at third and one out.  As the Cardinal offense has down-spiraled over the course of the last month, at bats with runners in scoring position had become increasingly harder to execute (and to watch, for that matter).  At that point in the proceedings, St Louis was 1 for 8 in RISP opportunities (runners in scoring position), and were 8 for their last 51 (.157) overall in this situation.  It had been 8 games since the Cardinals managed two hits with runners in scoring position in the same game.

But now, with the runner at third, the Cards didn’t even need a hit to bring that run home.  In theory, a well-placed ground ball could break the tie and give St Louis a chance to squeeze out a victory.  In recognition of that potential, Arizona’s manager Torey Lovullo pulled his infield in to cut off that potential run at the plate – and promptly watched the game slip away as Carlson’s soft line drive (it left the bat at just 75.7 miles per hour and only travelled 163 feet) just eked over the outstretched glove of the drawn-in second-baseman Eduardo Escobar.  The single brought home Sosa with the lead run, and opened the floodgates behind it.

Working against a tiring Alex Young (who was pitching in his third inning), four of the next five Cardinal hitters tacked on hits – including an RBI single from Paul Goldschmidt, a two-run double off the bat of Yadier Molina, and a rally-capping, two-run home run from Paul DeJong.

The 7-1 final (box score) isn’t representative of the closeness of the game.  But as so often happens in baseball, a huge rally can hinge on small things like a bunt and a manager’s decision.

Whether this changes the team’s trajectory going forward is the salient question.  They have had eruptions before, and have gone right back to their scuffling ways.  It will be instructive to see if any of this carries over to tonight’s contest.

But, for 24 hours at least, there are a few rays of hopeful sunshine poking their way through the gray clouds.  For now, that will have to be enough.

Carlson

It’s been five games, now, since Dylan was moved to the leadoff spot.  The early returns are encouraging.  Carlson – who has now hit safely in 6 of his last 7 – is 6 for 20 (.300) as the leadoff hitter – the hits including a double, a triple and a home run (good for a .600 slugging percentage).  Dylan has scored 5 runs and driven in 4 over those last 5 games.

Carlson drove in St Louis’ first two runs of the game, as he was 2-for-2 with runners in scoring position.  For the month of June, Dylan is hitting .300 (6 for 20) in RISP situations.

Nootbaar

Lars Nootbaar stepped into the starting right-field spot and opened his major league career with 4 hits in his first 12 at bats.  He has now stumbled into the first little slump of his major league career.  After 3 hitless at bats last night, Nootbaar is 0 for his last 10.

Helsley

After surviving a rough patch during which he was scored on in 6 of 9 appearances, Ryan Helsley is beginning to re-establish himself in a bullpen that desperately needs a dependable arm or two.  In 8 innings over his last 8 games, Ryan has given just 1 run on 3 hits – holding the last 30 batters he’s faced to a .111 batting average.  As June draws to a close, Ryan holds a 2.61 ERA and a .162 batting average against for his 10.1 innings this month.

Gant

The plan for John Gant’s first relief appearance of the year was for him to carry the team through the sixth inning, setting up the back of the bullpen.  Johnny didn’t quite make it that far, surrendering consecutive one-out singles to Asdrubal Cabrera and Pavin Smith.  But – with the runner now in scoring position at second – Gant dialed it in and retired Nick Ahmed on a flyball before exiting the contest.

Even during the worst of his struggles this season, Gant has always been solid with runners in scoring position (which is a good thing, because he put himself in that position often enough).  For the season, batters are 9 for 67 (.134) against Johnny in damage situations.

Gallegos

More seriously good work from Giovanny Gallegos proved critical to the victory.  Entering with a runner at second in the top of the seventh, Gio retired all three batters he faced, leaving the lead run at third.  Over his last 8 games, Gallegos has thrown 9 innings of 2-hit, no walk, shutout ball, striking out 9 along the way.  After throwing 18 of his 22 pitches for strikes last night, Gio has thrown 70% strikes (85 of 121) over those last 9 innings.  The batting line against him has been .074/.074/.111, and his ERA for the month of June slides down to 1.64 over 11 innings.

All three of the batters who faced Gio were up with a runner in scoring position, and Gallegos’ efforts were part of an 0-for-10 evening for Arizona with ducks on the pond.  Gio has just been tough to hit, whether there is an RBI opportunity or not.  This year, batters are 4 for 26 (.154) in RISP opportunities against Gallegos.

Miller

Andrew Miller is also starting to earn a little trust in a sometimes ragged bullpen.  He threw a spotless eighth last night, and holds an 0.93 ERA in 9.2 innings since his return from the injured list.  He has allowed no home runs in the 8 games he’s pitched in since his return, and has held opposing batters to a .212 average and a .303 slugging percentage.

NoteBook

In the sixth inning (with the game still a 1-1 tie) Genesis Cabrera came out of the bullpen to face left-hander Daulton Varsho with runners at first and third and two outs.  This became a talking point in the game.  With the pitcher’s spot up next, Lovullo had David Peralta kneeling in the on deck circle as a warning that he would be sent to hit for the pitcher if the inning extended that far.  And yet, when Varsho drew the walk that loaded the bases, Torey pulled Peralta back and sent pitcher Alex Young to the plate. The threat promptly ended as Alex watched Cabrera buzz three strikes past him.

Speculation abounds as to why the Arizona manager didn’t roll the dice with Peralta.   Derrick Goold – writing for the Post-Dispatch – suggested either the need for Young to provide innings for an over-taxed bullpen (which was probably a strong consideration, since Lovullo stuck with Young all through the disastrous seventh-inning), or that Torey was taking a chance that Young might draw a walk and drive in the go-ahead run anyway.  This was not a bad gamble, as the Cards lead all of baseball in bases-loaded walks.  Their 18 include three pitchers (Brett Anderson, Will Smith and Max Fried).  It was even Cabrera who had issued the bases-loaded pass to Smith, so it was a better than passing gamble.

To that equation, let me add the fact that Torey had no right-handed batters on his bench, and he may have been reluctant to throw his best lefty bat (Peralta) in against a very tough lefty in Cabrera (and Arizona did rush David into the game as soon as the right-handed Gallegos entered the game in the eighth).

All of these managerial wheels, of course, vanish into thin air if the abominable designated hitter was in place.  Anyone who tells you that the DH doesn’t drain strategy out of the game either has little conception of baseball, or is trying to sell you something.

Which provides a perfect segue into –  

My Designated Hitter Rant

Every year now, baseball purists in the National League are continuously threatened with the permanent infliction of the designated hitter.  Last year, I responded with an extensive rant against the DH.  While trying to update that document, I managed to delete it.  So, I have re-written it here.  The hope is to set forth a reasonable argument for keeping the DH far, far away from National League parks.  I encourage you to read it and pass it along to other like-minded fans of this great old game.

I’m pretty sure I’ve never ever seen this before.

With age, of course, comes occasional struggles with memory.  And, of course, it’s not the kind of thing that gets marked in a scorecard or a database, so it’s not something that can be checked.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that this had never happened before.

It’s Friday night, and the Pirates are in town for the second game of a four-game set.  Pittsburgh had won the first game handily, and the Friday affair started out as more of the same.  The Cards came to bat in the bottom of the third, trailing 4-1.  But there St Louis came up with a heroic (for them) rally, tying the game at four by the bottom of the fourth inning.

But Mike Shildt stuck with starter Kwang Hyun Kim for only one more batter in the fifth – Adam Frazier (who he retired on a grounder back to the mound).  Although at only 70 pitches, and even though abbreviated starts have been a plague to this team so far this season, Mike decided he had pushed Kwang Hyun far enough, and into the game came Jake Woodford.

Things would begin to fall apart immediately.

It would begin with that quintessential feature of the 2021 pitching staff – a walk – this one to Ke’Bryan Hayes, bringing up Bryan Reynolds.

Woodward’s sinker shatters Reynolds’ bat, and he dribbles a grounder (71.3 mph off the bat) up the middle, right to shortstop Edmundo Sosa, who was basically playing right in the baseline, just in front of the base that Hayes was hustling towards.  The ball arrives to Sosa with Hayes still three or four steps away.  On the face of it, it’s a fairly easy tag and throw for the inning ending double-play.

And then, just as Sosa is stretching his glove out to make the tag, his left leg is seized by a massive cramp.  Inexplicably, Edmundo tumbles to the turf, the tag is missed, and everyone is safe.

Really?  A sudden cramp that prevents the double-play?

Well, you know what will happen next.  Three pitches later, Jake hangs a curveball that Pittsburgh’s Jacob Stallings rips into left field for the single that chases Hayes home with the game-winning run.  That run (that pushed the Pirates in front 5-4) would end the evening’s scoring (box score).

Except for the fact that the Cardinals actually scored a few runs, this game was nearly a microcosm of St Louis’ stunning fall from grace.  Pittsburgh was last in town for a quick two-game series on May 18-19.  St. Louis took both games, improving their record at that point to 25-18 and pushing their lead in the division to a nearly-comfortable 3.5 games.  In losing three of four to the Pirates this trip in, the Cardinal record sinks to 37-41, dropping them 8 games behind in the division.

They greet the struggling Arizona Diamondbacks tonight having managed a 12-23 record over their last 35 games, and having dropped 11.5 games in the standings during that span.  Offensively, they are hitting just .210 and scoring just 3.11 runs per game – a rate so penurious that the league’s most dominant pitching staff would be hard pressed to make do with the scanty offense.  Meanwhile, that pitching staff has been bleeding out runs as a rate of 4.89 earned runs per nine innings – in addition to 18 more unearned runs allowed over those games – a generosity excessive enough to challenge even an elite offensive unit.

Caught in this little death-spiral that has – for the moment, anyway – knocked them out of contention, the Cards have been disappointing on both sides of the ball.

And, especially on the pitching side, they’ve been more than a little unlucky as well.

The walks, of course, have been their own principle contribution to their own demise.  In the Sunday afternoon game, starting pitcher Johan Oviedo walked 4 batters – all in the first inning.  For the series, the three starters not named Adam Wainwright would walk 12 batters in the 13.1 innings they managed to stay on the mound.

But if the sight of a Pirate batter trotting to first was the series’ most common sight, the second most common would almost have to be a Pirate batter flaring a short fly ball that falls in front of center-fielder Dylan Carlson.

In his four inning start, Oviedo allowed 6 hits – all singles.  Five of them with an exit velocity lower than 80 miles per hour.  For the series, nearly half of the Pirates’ 40 hits (18) exited the bat below 90 miles per hour.  Toss in the Sosa cramp, and Pittsburgh profited disproportionately from soft contact.

For their part, the Cardinals put 52 balls in play at less than 90 mph off the bat during the series.  Only 6 of those dropped in for hits.  There are times in this game that the random chances fall against you.  There is little one can do while this is going on – and the only thing left to you is to play hard, keep the faith, and wait for things to fall in for your team a bit.

Although, for all of that, it would help a great deal if they would walk fewer batters.

Kim

While Kwang Hyun didn’t take the loss in the Friday game, it did mark another scuffling outing for arguably the team’s best pitcher last year.  He finished allowing 4 runs in 4.1 innings.  Kim has started 6 of the last 35 games, going 0-4 with a 5.14 ERA in 28 innings.

Thus far this season, Kim has shown a decided preference for that extra day off.  After failing to last 5 innings on Friday, Kwang Hyun is 0-3 with a 5.52 ERA in 4 starts on four-day’s rest.  He’s started on five-day’s rest 5 times with a 1-1 record and a 2.88 ERA.

Waino

Once again, almost 40-year-old Adam Wainwright was the sole saving grace of the rotation.  Starting the Saturday game, Adam muffled the un-stoppable Pirates on 6 hits over 6 innings and just 1 run.  He earned the series’ lone victory (box score).  The other three starters in the series managed only a 9.45 aggregate ERA.  Adam is now 3-1 this month with a 2.45 ERA and a .202 batting average against.  He has achieved a quality start in each of his 5 appearances this month.  The 19 starts made by the others starters this month have resulted in an 0-12 record with a 7.88 ERA.  The other starters together have managed 4 quality starts this month.

Oviedo

The loser in the Sunday game (box score), Oviedo’s education at the major league level continues.  His 5 runs allowed in 4 innings leaves him 0-2 with a 5.09 ERA for the month.

Cabrera

Genesis Cabrera is one arm that has been unperturbed by the recent swoon.  Genesis retired all 7 Pirates he faced in 2 appearances over the weekend, and over his last 7 innings (6 games), Cabrera has given just 1 run on 3 hits.  He has walked none, while striking out 7.  Sixty-nine percent of his pitches have been strikes, and batters are missing on 32% of their swings against him.  This little run has dropped his ERA for the month to 2.70 in 10 innings.

Gallegos

The other prominent set-up man in the Cardinal bullpen is also on a roll.  Over his last 8 games, Giovanny Gallegos has thrown 8 innings of 2-hit shutout ball – also with no walks – and 8 strikeouts.  With a performance very similar to Cabrera’s, Gallegos has thrown 67 of his last 99 pitches (68%) for strikes, while opposing batters have missed on 33% of their swings against him.  His June ERA is down to 1.80 in 10 innings.

Woodford

Jake – who gave up runs in both of his games this weekend – was one of the pitchers who might have been in the discussion to take the place of one of the struggling starters.  He has given 5 home runs this month in just 12.1 innings – on his way to a 5.84 June ERA.  Hardly anything to build great confidence.

Edman

Tommy Edman – who has started nearly every game at one position or another – was out of the lineup this evening after a tough series against the Pirates.  Edman went 1 for 16, and was hitless in his last 14 at bats.  Tommy is slashing just .211/.219/.284 this month.

NoteBook

At 3:46, the Friday game was the longest the Cards played since their 8-7 loss to Cincinnati on June 6 lasted 3:50.

The 89 degree heat on Saturday marked the hottest Cardinal game since they beat Miami on June 14 in 90 degree heat.

Yadier Molina provided the game-winning hit in the only Cardinal win this weekend.  Yadi (with 9 on the season) has now pulled ahead of Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado (who both have 8) for the team lead.

The 11 runs scored in this series were the most scored by St Louis in a series since they scored 15 runs while being swept by the Reds in four games from June 3 to June 6.

Over their last 11 series, the Cards are just 2-8-1.  They are 4-5-3 in series at home so far this year.

My Designated Hitter Rant

Every year now, baseball purists in the National League are continuously threatened with the permanent infliction of the designated hitter.  Last year, I responded with an extensive rant against the DH.  While trying to update that document, I managed to delete it.  So, I have re-written it here.  The hope is to set forth a reasonable argument for keeping the DH far, far away from National League parks.  I encourage you to read it and pass it along to other like-minded fans of this great old game.