Let me preface this post with saying that I love Cardinals’ baseball. I absolutely love it. From March through October, I live, breath, eat, sleep, and dream Cardinals’ baseball. From October through February, I just breath and dream it. With that being said, I feel like a traitor. Boggs has made me feel like a traitor. Every time I see him coming in the game, I heave an enormous exasperated sigh. I just don’t have confidence in him coming into close games. Scratch that, I don’t have confidence in him coming in to a game with a comfortable lead.
So far this season, Mr. Boggs has pitched 8.2 innings, given up 13 hits, 13 runs (12 of those earned), one home run, 7 walks, and had 8 strike outs. His record (just for 2013) is 0-2, with 2 saves, no holds, and 2 blown saves. Wanna know what his ERA is? It’s a whopping 12.46. Tonight, he came into the game in the 8th inning. Wanna know what his ERA is for tonight’s game? 108. I kid you not. This is like a bad dream.
I have had the discussion about Boggs a million and a half times with my sweet naive brother-in-law, who insists that Boggs is the go-to guy. He had the best record…blah, blah, blah. I’m telling you, I’m not buying it.
I like to keep my posts positive. I really really want to be able to do that tonight, but I just can’t. I want Boggs to do well. I always want Cardinals to do well. I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed for Jaime Garcia’s record, which would be much better if Boggs hadn’t come in from the bullpen. I’m disappointed for Yadi who has to catch him when he comes in. I’m just plain old disappointed.
Obviously, I am not the coach. I don’t get to see him when he’s off-camera. I love that Matheny has incredible amounts of confidence in this guy, but you have to start asking the question: is this what’s best for the team?
In a nutshell, here’s my plea: please, please, please Boggs, pull yourself together! I wanna like you, I really do. Let’s bring the ERA down a few notches. You are a Cardinal, afterall.
Tomorrow’s a new day, the beginning of a new series in Washington. Let’s hope the all the earned runs are out of his system. Or, let’s hope that he’s not in for longer than a batter.
Go Cards!
9 comments
I honestly think it is between the ears.
We need to sit Boggs in the bullpen a while and start utilizing Kelly, Mujica, Rosenthal, Choate, Rzepcynski, etc… Let Boggs get his shit together before we throw him in there again just to have him fail.
Scrabble is not much better, I fail to understand why we still have him as well.
Your forgetting Salas as well
They both need serious work and I’m talking sending them down for a while to adjust and gain some confidence
” the needs of the many out weigh the needs of the few or the one “
Rosenthal. Do it.
Rosenthal has the same amount of blown saves this year as Boggs. I would tread lightly with that… wouldn’t want to make him a head case too. He has like 30 mlb innings under his belt and a very promising future.
Then lose with Boggs.
Obviously they won’t continue to do so, and will try out some others. There is nobody you would be able to trade for right now other that Huston Street because the Padres have said that he is available. Same thing happened to us in 2011 when Franklin melted down. We suffered through it as long as we could hoping he would get it right, then went by committee. Thought our in-house options were better than people we could trade for… since everybody wanted Miller in any trade proposal. Salas did most of the job before Motte took over in the end. I’d love Rosenthal to do it, but I’d be much more comfortable with somebody in there that knows the role and can handle the role. But then again, who was our last lights out closer? Lee Smith? lol
While it’s hard to draw any conclusion in only 8.2 IP (for example take 8.2 IP from Chris Carpenter in mid-May 2011 and you’ll probably have a pretty similar ERA), he has not been very good this year. Over the past 2 years, he’s pitched 134 innings and has been one of our most effective relievers, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.
That being said, his control in and out of the strike zone has SEEMED (I really have not seen any data) to really been lacking this year. Hopefully, he gets it figured out soon. Scrabble has actually been just fine this year. Salas seems like a lost cause to me. You know who hasn’t sucked? Adam Wainwright, he has probably been the best pitcher in baseball so far this year… Seriously, no walks? NO WALKS!
I feel exactly the same way with Salas; and, lo and behold, he effed it up again last night. All they really need, I feel, is ONE decent outing that doesn’t result in a loss for most of us to jump back on the wagon. However, I think both of them should be shelved for the time being, get their shit together, and we should be using Kelly/Rosenthal (The Hebrew Flamethrower) more. I feel for them, I really do, but Matheny’s “use them till they get it right” mentality is costing us wins.
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