Siiiiiighhhh…

I was all set to write about Mark Mulder’s … um… eventful outing until I thought about what I might write. It then occured to me: It’s just too easy, like beating up a person in a coma.

I also would be piling on, given a few other posts I’ve written about how much I can’t stand Mulder.

So there you go, Mark. Some good has come from your horseshit “effort.” Quotes deliberate, obviously. I mean, for the love of Pete, could he have acted less disinterested out there? The fu- … (deep breath) … I told myself I wouldn’t get on his case, regardless of the level of deservement. Moving on…

So… Sidney Ponson was a little wild Tuesday, eh? I’d like to think that he wasn’t purposely hitting guys when the bases are loaded. But that second one looked a little suspicious. At least he acted like it was an accident. Tony La Russa seemed a little peeved, however. I believe I saw TLR use a slang term for equine excrement when talking to El Sid.

Regardless of whether Sid’s HBPs were on purpose or not, you knew that after the second one, a Cardinal was going to get a turn. Especially given events of last week.

This time, Chris Duncan was the target of Ozzie Guillen’s vengeful wrath, getting a fastball square in his right buttock. Fortunately, his container of Skoal softened the blow. Wait a minute… you don’t think Daddy’s Boy was targeted, do you? I mean, David Riske comes on in relief in the seventh inning and retires the first two batters, then drills the next guy, who happens to be the son of the opposing pitching coach, who basically is TLR’s man-wife.

Coincidence?

In memoriam: Jack Buck 1924-2002

“Smith corks one into right down the line! It may go! … Go crazy, folks, Go crazy! It’s a home run! And the Cardinals have won the game … by the score of 3 to 2 … on a home run … by the Wizard! Go crazy!”

I get chills merely reading that quote.

Other, more competent bloggers will pay tribute to Mr. Buck far better than I could possibly dream of. I’m just doing my part here to remember a man with whom I grew up.

I was 27 years old when Mr. Buck died. When I got to work that afternoon, the office was busy… but quiet. That’s what I remember from that day, the stillness. People went quietly about their work, as if stopping would cause them to really think about what was lost.

A few days later, a colleague was pictured on the front page of The Post weeping at Mr. Buck’s memorial service at The Stadium.

The last memory I have of Mr. Buck is of Sept. 17, 2001, the first night that baseball resumed after 9/11. I was in awe, not only from his words, but by the sheer force of his will and determination to be out there doing what he could to help heal a nation.

John Francis Buck, Cardinal Nation misses you and will never forget you.

(logo courtesy Chris Creamer’s Sports Logos Page)

Instant Breakfast can breathe easier

… now that Cardinal Nation is officially off his back.

Yes, Juan Encarnacion had probably his best game as Cardinal on Saturday, going 3-for-4 with two homers and a double while driving in three and scoring two.

After languishing much of the first month-and-a-half of the season in the low .200s/mid-.200s/low .300s neighborhood, he’s hit well enough to bring that line closer to his career norms. He even managed to get his OBP above .300 with a walk Friday. As Mel Allen used to say: How about that!

Looking at his game log, I’m going to arbitrarily pick May 18 as his low point. You figure six weeks into the season should be enough time for a guy to get things going. But Juan was languishing at .221/.250/.366 after wearing the collar that night against the Mets. Not exactly the kind of production you want from your rightfielder.

Since then, however, Juan’s gone 35-for-101, or .362/.393/.648! And since The Day That Darkness Descended, he’s gone .429/.451/.735! For all our earlier griping about Juan’s lack of clutchitude and overall suckery, he’s stepped it up precisely when we needed him most. Now about that walk rate…

I advocate throwing the baseball at the batter.

ESPN has a fun poll going on right now about one’s thoughts on the recent beanballistics.

Those who know me know that I’m of the fairly old school. I’m all for “going inside” in retaliation, but only in retaliation. It’s like selling drugs: If someone gets drilled or showboats excessively, the first one is free. But the next one is gonna cost ya.

Regarding the Guillen Incident… I didn’t see it, only reading the above blogs and an MLB.com report. So I feel qualified in saying that it seems like Ozzie Guillen threw the Tracey boy underneath that proverbial bus. And that’s kinda shitty. The kid was making his third career appearance, I believe. Third (I believe)! Ordering him to throw at Hank Blalock is one thing, but berating him in front of the team for failing is another matter entirely. Kid’s probably scarred for life now.

And Randy Johnson suspended five games (or one start)? Come on, Larry “Bud.” He didn’t even hit old friend Eduardo Perez, and he gets suspended? Where’s the justice in that?

Eating everything but innings?

A day after the Chris Carpenter Pitch Count debate, we have sort of the opposite problem with Sidney Ponson.

Not with pitch counts, mind you, but with El Sid’s seeming inability to work deep into games. Wednesday night, he didn’t get out of the fourth inning, pulled after giving up seven hits (and being charged with six earned runs) in three-and-a-third.

In 10 starts this season, El Sid has pitched six innings only four times, and in only two of those did he make it into the seventh. Is it time to start wondering about his conditioning? Here we are, well into June, and Sid still can’t go seven innings. I know he spent a couple of weeks on the disabled list; does the progress he made before that go out the window with the DL stint?

Or am I just being unrealistic in thinking that 10-plus weeks into the season should be enough to get a guy’s legs under him, if you’ll forgive the expression. It’s not as if he’s throwing a lot of pitches; he’s averaging 16 pitches per inning and 75.8 pitches per start. For comparison’s sake, here’s the numbers of his rotationmates:

• Carpenter: 16.1 p/IP, 103.5 p/GS
• Mulder: 15.1, 94.7
• Suppan: 16.9, 96.5
• Marquis: 15.2, 97.2

Even Mark Mulder, the guy I love to hate, and Jason Marquis have fewer pitches per inning. When do we start shortening Ponson’s leash the way we have for Marquis and Mulder? I hear here’s a kid down in Memphis just aching to be Albert Pujols’ valet again.

Completion percentage

Nice work Tuesday night by Chris Carpenter, mowing down 13 Pirates (Pittsburgh batters, not actual pirates) to set a career high.

After he was pulled, a nice little debate start started on Viva El Birdos’ Game 63 thread about whether Carp should have been allowed to finish, especially since he’d fanned 13 in seven innings.

A few commenters disagreed with Tony La Russa’s decision to pull Carpenter after seven innings and (perhaps more importantly) 111 pitches.

I happened to disagree with those commenters. After 111 pitches, it’s time to hit the showers and leave it up to the relief corps, especially with a two-run lead. No sense in pushing for a complete game on a tired arm in June against a last-place team when you have several fresh arms in the bullpen. It’s what they’re there for, right? And in Carpenter’s case, he was making only his second start since coming off the disabled list and was well past his 94ish-pitch average. Why push him (or why allow him) to try to attain a meaningless statistical achievement?

(For an extensive study of pitch counts and their relation to pitchers’ health, see Baseball Prospectus’ essays here and here. Hat tip to mikedallas23 for passing those along.)

And really, what purpose does a complete game serve? It doesn’t count any more in the standings than an “incomplete” game. I can accept the whole “give your bullpen the day off” argument, but that point is moot because of Monday’s day off. Everyone’s ready to go.

I think that the only value complete games have is for fantasy geeks (to whose ranks I belong) and to give old guys something to complain about.

Two words:

Breakdancing Transformers.

(hat tip: Liam)

Fun with music

The always-informative Wikipedia has a list of baseball players’ entrance music (hat tip: “Rick” O’Shea). Everyone knows Scott Rolen’s music. I wish he’d change that. Limp Bizkit sucks. Anyway, I did not know that, according to Wiki, David Eckstein entered to “Number One Spot” by Ludacris and “Busy Child” by the Chemical Brothers.

I didn’t see any other Cardinals on that list, so I got the idea to scroll through my iPod to see which songs might be appropriate for other Cardinals, in alphabetical order:

• Larry Bigbie- “On the DL,” the Pharcyde. This could work for several guys.
• Bill DeWitt- “Bitch, I’m Broke,” Cody Chesnutt.
• Chris Duncan- “Daddy’s Baby,” Cody Chesnutt.
• John Gall- “Bit Part,” the Lemonheads
• Jason Isringhausen- “Heart Attack Man,” Beastie Boys; “Aneurysm,” Nirvana; “It’s Gettin’ Hectic,” Gang Starr f/BNH, etc. You get the idea.
• Jason Marquis- “Is it Luck?” Primus
• Yadier Molina- “Been Caught Stealing,” Jane’s Addiction
• Sidney Ponson- “Alcoholiday,” Teenage Fanclub; “Big Fat Fuck,” Ween. OK… those were cheap shots. Sorry, Sid; I kid because I love. How about this one: “No. 13 Baby,” the Pixies.
• Albert Pujols- Before: “Jacking the Ball,” Sea and Cake. After: “Wish You Were Here,” Pink Floyd.
• Anthony Reyes- “Memphis Exorcism,” Squirrel Nut Zippers
• Ricardo Rincon- “Less Than Useful,” Ned’s Atomic Dustbin

I also found songs that might be good for players on other teams:

• Bronson Arroyo- “Cut Your Hair,” Pavement
• Michael Barrett- “Asswhippin’,” Fishbone
• Milton Bradley- “Misdirected Hostility,” 311
• Jason Grimsley- “Medicine Man, ” NIL8
• Ray King- “It’s a Shame About Ray,” the Lemonheads
• Adam LaRoche- “Pay Attention,” Dilated Peoples
• Matt Morris- “Organic Greenery,” Jimmy Smith
• Scott Sauerbeck- “All Apologies,” Nirvana
• Kansas City Royals- “Couldn’t Get Ahead,” the Fall
• Chicago Cubs- “Seasons in the Abyss,” Slayer

Feel free to suggest more.

Hey, we won!

Yes, despite falling behind the Brewers by six runs Friday night, the Cardinals scored a whopping 10 runs on a 12-hit attack, hopefully further cementing the idea that it really is O.K. for guys other than Albert Pujols to pace the offense.But really, the offense didn’t get going until Tony La Russa pinch-hit for Mark Mulder. It’s like they thought, “Finally, Spooky McSucksalot is done! Let’s get to work getting out of the hole he dug for us.”

And what a hole it was. Mulder, who seems to have assumed first chair in the Jason Marquis Memorial Cardinals Bloggers Whipping Boy Orchestra, whatevered his way through three uninspiring innings, giving up six runs on five hits while walking three. He gave up a first-inning home run to Carlos Lee, which makes 14 in 13 starts across 81.1 IP. If he makes 31 starts (his average the past five seasons), his current pace will give him about 33 HR allowed.

Fans who haven’t yet repressed their memories of Brett F. Tomko and Matt Morris and their whiplash-inducing 2003 and 2004 seasons, respectively, will recall that those cats each gave up 35 dingers. More than Mulder, right? For sure, but Tomko and Morris had HR/9IP rates of 1.55 and 1.56, respectively, while Mulder is sitting on 1.56 himself this season. Yikes.

If all this sounds like I’m picking on him, well… I am. Mulder’s always been on a short leash with me because we seemingly gave up so much to get him. Even my fantasy league’s scoring system likes Dan Haren better.

Overreaction is an understatement

Albert Pujols snorts meth!!!

He also clubs baby seals for fun and profit!!!

Or so your conclusion might be had you read the comments over at Deadspin and Viva El Birdos on Thursday.

In case you’re not addicted to the Internet, Deadspin on Thursday afternoon posted that a man named Chris “Redacted” Mihlfeld at one time told journeyman reliever and career screw-up Jason Grimsley where to find amphetamines. *cough*

Who the frig is Chris Mihlfeld, you ask? Well, he’s none other than the longtime personal trainer of our beloved Albert Pujols. Viva El Birdos picked up the Deadspin piece by way of Cardinals Diaspora, and the reaction was swift and predictable.

In a nutshell, the Deadspin and VEB commenters took this to mean that Pujols must be on human-growth hormone or some other untestable performance enhancer(s) and that this is the worst thing in the entire history of forever and “I’m so disillusioned,” etc.

Oh, really? If “redacted” really is Mihlfeld, he still didn’t actually provide Grimsley with the greenies; he merely said where they could be found, and the substance in question here is amphetamine, not HGH or anabolic steroids. Those are two massive leaps of logic to connect Pujols to PEDs.

And one enterprising VEB commenter used a little computer trickery to see if indeed it is Mihlfeld’s name on the affidavit page in question. You can decide for yourself.

The point is that this a such an overreaction as to be comical. You might expect it from (and roll your eyes at) certain Deadspin commenters, some of whom seem all to eager to believe baseless rumors and make them bigger than they really are. Or aren’t, in this case.

But Cardinals fans? Come on, people. You’re supposed to be The Best Fans in Baseball™, and you’re already assuming the worst based on some rather faulty logic: “Jason Grimsley asked a guy for some speed. That guy may have been Pujols’ personal trainer. Therefore, Albert Pujols takes HGH/steroids.”

Now, I loves me a good conspiracy theory (Big Oil and Big Auto holding back alternative-fuel vehicles is my favorite), but this one collapses under its own weight: Pujols’ recent and sudden surge in strikeouts was fueled by his anxiety that Grimsley was about to get busted and that he was next, so he faked an injury to go on the disabled list and therefore serve a 50-game suspension without being outed as a cheater, i.e., the “Jordan Treatment.” Um, yeah. Dry that one out and you could fertilize the lawn. Albert went on the D.L. on June 4. Recent stories have him on the shelf for as long as six weeks, which would be July 16. Fifty games after his D.L. date would be Aug. 2. If he’s still not playing by then and then magically gets well soon after, then you might have something.

Until then, it’s nothin’ but a “Gee, it’s unfortunate that Albert’s getting roped into this mess” thing.