It’s important for the Cards to keep their foot on the gas pedal. Lately, after winning the first game of a series, they regress and come up short in the final game. That ghostly facade crossed over into Pittsburgh. The hardest thing for a sports team is to keep their focus and their foot on the pedal in the heat of August and September. This is what it all comes down to. Fail here and you accomplish little to nothing. The biggest wrench in a team’s plans for postseason domination is getting complacent. Let’s go over what’s been happening and how tonight shapes up?
The Cards haven’t scored a run in 18 innings of play and nearly 4 days. Think of all the stuff you have done since the Cards last scored on Tuesday night. Mind boggling. Let that one settle into your cerebellum. After winning 5 of 6 from the Braves and Reds, the bats have gone silent and our pitching has been bruised. Adam Wainwright sent fans into a saber-metrics investigation with his 9 earned runs allowed performance and Shelby Miller had a lot of issues with Garrett Jones last night in Pittsburgh. Jones had been struggling this month before collecting 4 RBI against our young gun. Francisco Liriano is making the Pirates look like lottery winners with his 3 shutdown performances against the Cards and overall record. When he pitches, it looks like a golf ball is being thrown towards the plate. There are times in the season where the ball resembles a beach sized water toy. Against Liriano, the Cards bats are powerless. It’s a good thing we faced the familiar A.J. Burnett tonight and a rookie on Sunday. It’s hard to accept two brutal losses in a row but remember the important part. Against every Pirates starter other than Liriano, the Cards have done well in their last three Bucs matchups. There is hope. In baseball, bad things come in pairs.
A fresh question is asking which Lance Lynn will show up today. The troubled young mentally disturbed hurler hasn’t been that solid in his past 3 starts and needs to settle the score tonight. If baserunners reach and an umpire doesn’t tie a bow around every pitch Lynn throws, a problem may surface. How will Lynn handle it? His biggest demon is himself on a mound in hot temperatures. One thing people haven’t pointed out often enough is the effect of the temperature on Lynn’s pitching. Sure he has lost weight this season but stats show that the big man doesn’t fare well in the heat of the summer. Hot temperatures make certain athletes lose their edge a little, and the sophisticated practices of pitchers make them a prime candidate for mental instability. How does Lynn finish the season? It’s about time he takes command of his role on this team before it evaporates. Don’t get too lost in his win total because it’s misleading. Take away the 6.2 runs per start of support and his record would be a lot different.
Hottest Cardinal hitter? NOT PETE KOZMA. I won’t take shots at poor Pete. He is the most picked on Cardinal since Tino Martinez flunked out at first base and popped up to third base more than any free agent acquisition ever. Pete is being put into the lineup and doing his best. He is a .215 hitter and won’t improve unless the minor league guy with the voodoo beads from Bull Durham pays him a visit. What are the other options? Ryan Jackson should be here this next week. He has barely gotten an ounce of opportunity so he needs to see some time at short because he offers the same quality of defense and his bat can’t do any worse than Pete’s. There’s the wild card in Greg Garcia, who has risen through the ranks of the Cards minor league system, can play shortstop and is hitting well at the moment. If you are a playoff bound team, a manager can’t put Kozma into this lineup. Daniel Descalso’s defense isn’t good enough and his bat is streaky so a new body is needed. Put a new band aide at shortstop.
Where would the Cardinals be without Matt Carpenter, Edward Mujica, and Allen Craig’s newfound production this season? No offense to the true MVP in Yadi, but without those three redefining unlikely results, the Cards are in 3rd place easily right now. This is the Obvious But Still Credible Statement section.
John Axford Trade thoughts. Instant take on this move is the Cards are taking a chance on a former closer who once saved over 40 games in a row. The Cardinals know all about the once dynamic right arm of John Axford because a few of those saves came against their team. Axford was a dominant closer as recently as 2011, where he closed 46 of 48 games in taking over for retired saves leader Trevor Hoffman. In 2010, he came up and helped an ailing Hoffman and closed 24 of 27. In 2012, the wheels came off. He blew 9 saves, walked 39 and gave up 10 home runs in less than 70 innings pitched. He just couldn’t convert the way he used to. It got so bad that Axford shaved off his trademark Wyatt Earp like mustache and adopted a new approach to the plate. It wasn’t sad to see because the Brewers are in our division and are a constant foe. Axford hasn’t improved much in 2013, losing the closer job and when he got the opportunity to shut the door, he has failed in all six attempts. After plowing through the NL with 70 saves in 75 appearances in 2010-11, Axford has gone 35-50 in the last two seasons.
Guess what Cardinals fans? Axford isn’t being brought here to close games or even pitch in high leverage situations. He’s just another arm who can pitch. This is John Mozelaik taking a bird with a broken wing off the scrap yard who is still young and durable and giving the tormented pitcher the greatest gift of all time. Yadi Molina. The catcher who has turned average aging arms and young raw rookie guns into seasoned vets in less than 5 months. Mike Matheny and Molina knows how to handle troubled pitchers and will implement Axford into pitching coach Derek Lilloquist’s system. This is a low liability move for the Cards with a potential upside. The Cards will pay a little of Axford’s 5 million dollar contract and he is arbitration eligible next season which means the Cards don’t have to bring him back. This is a good stretch for Mo and the team to make on a guy who was brilliant and confounded hitters only 2 seasons ago.
The Pirates picked up Justin Morneau today, an aging bat capable of home runs but little else. The good thing is the Cards faced the Pirates best on Friday and now face Burnett and a rookie the last two games. We are still in the driver’s seat and control the proceedings. All we have to do is avoid the sweep this weekend and win the next two series against the Reds and Pirates before embarking on the final 19 game stretch.
Can we keep our foot on the gas pedal long enough to make this final push or will we get too complacent? Time will tell.
Thanks for reading,
Dan Buffa
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