Oh, the humanity!

Getting beaten by the hated Cubs is bad enough. To get shut out is even worse.

But to be on the business end of seven scoreless innings from He Who Shall Not Be Named is the ultimate indignity.

Ironically enough, it appeared that HWSNBN was up to his old tricks by plunking Albert Pujols and allowing a Scott Rolen base hit to set up a big first inning, the bane of his existence last year.

But he managed to get a painfully slow-footed Jim Edmonds to ground out. From then on, he was more or less the same pitcher he was with St. Louis, allowing at least one baserunner in four of his next six innings. The Cardinals flaccid offense just couldn’t string enough hits together, going 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position Saturday. And Chris Duncan continued his overanxious futility with the bases loaded by striking out in the fourth inning.

Pujols wasn’t all that impressed facing HWSNBN, though:

He got in trouble like normally, you know, he always gets in trouble, and finds a lucky pitch to make to get out of trouble, you know.

Surly and Dismissive Albert is the Albert we knew and loved last year. He also was a ball-destroying machine last year. Maybe that’s all it will take for Albert to break out: start being a dick to the press again.

Also interesting is that our own Anthony Reyes seems to have inherited the HWSNBN mantle of digging a hole early before settling in. And Reyes didn’t actually pitch badly; he made the one bad pitch to Michael Barrett, and it was all over before the first inning was in the books.

As soon as he let that pitch go, I said, “Aw, man.” Gary Bennett had set up down and in, and Reyes missed up and over the plate. Barrett, to his credit, didn’t miss. That mistake ruined an otherwise good outing: seven hits (six minus the Barrett HR), no walks and five strikeouts in six innings.

Siiiighhhh… I’m still optimistic for the rubber game. It is Ten-Run Sunday, after all.

One more thing… I’ve extended another invitation to Paper Boy to chime in from the dark side of The Rivalry. Be gentle, my friend.

Kevin’s not too happy, either. (The Red Crush)

Well, well, well…

(The Associated Press)

I don’t want to sound all melodramatic nor put the (band)wagon before the (work)horse here, but we might have just seen the coming of age for our Anthony Reyes.

I thought starting Game 1 was a great situation for Reyes because the rook would be under little pressure. I don’t want to say he proved me right, but…

Actually, he did start out a little shaky, allowing a run on a couple of hits and a walk. But after that, the kid was straight-up money, setting down 17 straight at one point, by which it was much too late.

His control also was impeccable, throwing 67 of his 91 pitches for strikes and allowing only the first-inning walk, which sunk his start in the NLCS and several during the regular season.

But Reyes also had help from the ultra-agressive Tigers hitters. By my count, 10 of the Tigers’ 17 flyball outs were made on the first or second pitch of at-bats. Those quick at-bats are what kept Reyes’ pitch count down. During a bit of daydreaming Friday afternoon, I wondered whether the Tigers’ free-swinging ways might play into the strengths of the Cardinals’ pitch-to-contact staff. Saturday morning, LBoros confirmed my suspicions:

the tigers’ low obp (24th among the 30 mlb teams) and apparent lack of discipline plays into the hands of the cardinal hurlers.

Not that Reyes is your classic pitch-to-contact, um, pitcher, but this bodes well for the staff members who are. I also was sort of freaked out that I’d made the same observation that an expert had made.

A few other observations:

• The Pujols-Edmonds-Rolen troika was a combined 5-for-11 with five runs and four RBI. It seems like Scott Rolen is starting to get his swing back somewhat.
• Speaking of Rolen, the incident in the sixth inning when he ran into Brandon Inge rounding third was totally on purpose, the same as Ronnie Belliard landing on Jose Reyes during Game 6 of the NLCS. I think every fan clenched when they saw Rolen in another collision. Those tend not to agree with him. Thankfully, he seems to have survived this one.
• The performance of the 3-4-5 hitters was mostly in spite of David Eckstein and Chris Duncan going 1-for-9 ahead of them. The leadoff and No. 2 spots have been a virtual dead zone this entire postseason. This is going to have to change.
• The second-guessing of Tigers manager Jim Leyland has begun. I’m obviously biased, but I don’t think pitching to Albert Pujols was a mistake on Leyland’s part. There were two outs already, and Justin Verlander had handled Pujols well in Pujols’ first at-bat, striking him out on a nasty curveball. The mistake was Verlander leaving a fastball up and over the outside part of the plate. Leyland obviously thought Verlander could get Pujols out again; Verlander just made a bad pitch. Blame the kid, not the manager.

Today, it’s Jeff Weaver vs. Kenny Rogers. Make them pay for trading you, J-Dub.

Tony and the Tigers

(Charles Krupa/AP)

Friday night at work, a co-worker/Cubs fan tried messing with me saying he heard on the radio that he who shall not be named could be in line to start Game 1 of the World Series today. I laughed in his face.

Now, it’s official: Anthony Reyes will start.

Worried? Don’t be. Disregard his mediocre regular season. Throw out his crappy NLCS start. I think this is the perfect setup for the Reyes boy.

Does that make me crazy? Possibly. But think about it: There’s no pressure on the kid. Nobody expects the Cardinals to win, so he needn’t worry about the burden of high expectations. He can just go out there and deal.

Plus, he did pretty OK against that one American League team that had never seen him before.

—————————-

Jeff Weaver is in line to start Game 2 on Sunday.

He’s one of the several “story lines” that Fox will flog mercilessly. Once upon a time, he was considered a future ace by the Tigers, who ended up trading him in 2002 to the Yankees, a deal that eventually netted the Tigers their Game 4 starter, Jeremy Bonderman.

I don’t know the conditions under which he left Detroit back then. But it seems that today, Todd Jones has little regard for Weaver:

There’s no love lost here that he’s gone.

At least Weaver was an adult about it, basically ignoring Jones and expressing his happiness for his former teammates and the city of Detroit:

They were here for the worst of times, and now they get to see the best of times.

I’ve never been fond of trash-talk. At best, it’s juvenile. At worst, it’s disrespectful. But Todd Jones is the straight-shooting type. He’ll tell you how he feels, and I guess I have to respect him for that. It still doesn’t make it right.

Props to Weaver for not fanning the flames through the media. The best way to tell Jones to go scratch would be to shut down the Tigers in Game 2.

Then Jones might have a legitimate reason for saying there’s no love lost.

It was bound to happen

The bullpen’s supply of Magic Pixie Dust™ finally ran out.

Brad Thompson and Josh Hancock bore the brunt of Sunday’s debacle. If you thought Thompson’s ERA after Game 4 was unsightly at 27.00, consider Hancock’s. After allowing all five batters he faced to reach base and score, his ERA for the NLCS stands at 162.00. That kind of sucks.

Tyler Johnson also came back to Earth, although in not the explode-and-leave-a-fiery-crater fashion of Hancock. Braden Looper, of all people, gives the yeoman’s effort to get through the final three frames, yielding only one run.

While the bullpen took on the crooked numbers, Anthony Reyes bears some culpability as well.

His start was one of the more frustrating performances I’ve witnessed in a while. It’s not that he wasn’t throwing strikes; he struck out four in his four innings, and he got to 0-2 or 1-2 with probably eight to 10 other batters. He just couldn’t put them away.

After getting ahead to those eight or 10 batters, Reyes began wasting pitches, nibbling hither and yon instead ot just going right back after them. It was all too predictable: Reyes would get two strikes, then Yadier Molina would set up way outside and have Reyes “waste” a pitch. And then another pitch, etc. Before you knew it, it was 3-2 and he was forced to be too fine, with little to no success, as evidenced by his four walks and three hits, two of which where of the four-base variety. He’s lucky that both were solo shots.

What happened to that high cheese he used so effectively against Milwaukee in September? Or the guile he showed in one-hitting the White Sox in June? If wasting pitches was part of Sunday’s game plan, then he executed it flawlessly: He rung up 86 pitches in only four innings.

I can’t help but think that Monday’s game is inching toward “must-win” status. To go back to New York down 3-2 would be troublesome. Game 5 with bullets:

• While Tom Glavine is going on short rest, so is Jeff Weaver, and that’s not something I’m looking forward to. Pitching at home hasn’t been his strong suit this year. The possibility of a rainout exists.
• Albert Pujols is going to have to go about 7-for-9 (or thereabouts) against Glavine, or he’s going to get crucified when he returns to New York for Game 6.
• Scott Rolen is going to have to stop sucking. He singled and scored in his first at-bat Sunday but was of no consequence thereafter. Don’t like getting benched? Then do something to make the manager keep you in the lineup.
• The rest of the run producers need to step it up as well. Before Sunday’s game, Scott Spiezio had half of the Cardinals’ extra base hits in the NLCS. Jim Edmonds’ home run and Juan Encarnacion’s triple Sunday were nice. Keep it up, boys.
• And it seems fitting, given the way that 2006 has gone, that Yadier Molina is batting .462 during the NLCS when none of the other regulars are above .300. Weird, wild stuff.

“Ian Snell is a good pitcher…

… for me to poop on!”

A wise man once said:

“you can beat the cardinals this year, but you still can’t beat pujols.”

Damn straight, dawg.

Albert Pujols beat the Pirates on Sunday all by his lonesome, hitting three home runs off Pirates starter Ian Snell in his first three at-bats, driving in five runs in the process.

But not to be outdone, the Phillies’ Ryan Howard, a native St. Louisan, also went deep in his first three at-bats. The Associated Press game story taught us that Pujols was one of the two players (Travis Hafner, the object of Rob Neyer’s mancrush, being the other) the last time two players hit three homers in a game (July 20, 2004, if you’re scoring at home).

For the last time that two players each had gone deep in their first three at-bats, you’d have to go all the way back to July 26, 1970, your protagonists this time being Johnny Bench and Orlando Cepeda. Awesome.

But not to be forgotten among the ball-destroying mayhem is young Anthony Reyes, who seemingly picked up where he left off last week in the Pacific Coast League.

The Reyes boy showed exactly why he prefers going fastball-changeup to hitters, whiffing nine Pirates in 6.1 innings. I caught his first four innings before I had to step away, and I don’t think I saw him throw one breaking ball in that time. He was either blowing his cheese past hitters or fooling them with that parachute change. In fact, according to Yahoo’s play-by-play log, all nine strikeouts were of the swinging variety. Kid was straight up missing bats.

He even threw a bone to Dave Duncan by inducing six groundball outs.

Sunday makes four straight dominant outings by Cardinals starters. Dare I say that, after all the ugly efforts earlier this summer, this is pretty nice. Let’s hope Jason Marquis can keep that streak going Monday.

Great job, kid

… now pack up your trash and get out.

In what easily was the most anticipated game of the 2006 season, Anthony Reyes pitched the game of his life: 8 IP, H, R, 6 K.

That’s it. Sheer effing brilliance. It’s a shame the kid took the loss. It’s also a shame that he’s going back down to Memphis. Don’t believe me? Check it:

• Thursday’s loss can be directly traced to the home run Reyes served up to Jim Thome.
• Reyes’ groundball/flyball ratio was 6-12. This is unacceptable, people.
• Reyes struck out as many guys as he retired on grounders. This, too, is unacceptable.
• Reyes is not a mediocre, groundballing journeyman. He is a talented, whiff-inducing youngster. Unacceptable.

Bitter? Only as bitter as the beer I’m drinking.

After having to accept a half-assed Hot Stove League in which the major signing was Juan Encarnacion, we get a rigged spring-training “competition” for the No. 5 spot in the rotation, which went to Sidney Ponson, even though Reyes (and Adam Wainwright, for that matter) clearly outpitched El Sid.

Then Reyes languishes in Memphis (destroying the Pacific Coast League in the process) while the likes of Mark Mulder, Jason Marquis and Ponson (with the occasional Suppan) repeatedly turn in poor-to-bullcrap performances.

Then it takes two blowups of monumental proportions for The Braintrust to realize that maybe, just maybe this Reyes scum might be worth trotting out there.

So yeah, I’m a little bitter. The Perfumed Princes seem to be trotting out every excuse as to why Reyes doesn’t belong with the big club, with Tony La Russa last week going so far to say the kid is “not ready.” Um, Tony? I guess 65 Ks against 8 BB in 71 Triple-A innings is indicative of needing some more seasoning, huh?

What’s the excuse going to be after Thursday’s performance?

Florida Marlins=Baseball Zoloft

Give me that Z, O-L-O-F-T
No longer pissed, you don’t bother me
I’m making it through, I’m giving my all
When base are loaded, I’m whacking the ball

– “Zoloft,” by Ween

There’s no better cure for the four-game schneid blues than the Florida Marlins. Saturday’s game was a bit shaky of course, but we hit the ball well the whole series: 36 hits and 23 runs scored.

The good hitting has a chance to continue as the team faces the mediocre staffs (or is it staves) of Colorado and Arizona this week.

In injury news, Cards bloggers may just get what they’ve been wishing for. Sidney Ponson has injured his elbow, and prognosis is unknown at this point. This may just be the opening Adam Wainwright needs for a start. You hate to get all Schadenfreude on a guy, but it would be nice to see what the Wainwright boy could do given six innings.

Of course, there’s always the matter of Anthony Reyes. Sportsline seems to think that it’s the Reyes boy who could get the call. He also pitched on Sunday, going 6 innings and allowing 2 earned runs, 5 hits and a walk while striking out 7.

It’s worth a shot either way. Wainwright certainly has earned the chance to start with his stellar work out of the bullpen. Reyes, though, has been more or less mowing down the Pacific Coast League, and Ponson’s next turn also would be Reyes’ next turn. That and he’s on my fantasy team.

Perhaps best of all, it could possibly free up Jason Marquis for a trade, perhaps with Marquis’ hometown Mets, who lost Victor Zambrano for the season on Sunday.

A dude can hope, anyway.

I am an idiot

Why, you ask? I’ll tell you why… it’s because I totally flaked on the Cardinals Caravan coming to Springfield on Friday. I work for the damn newspaper, and I failed to notice the advance about the Caravan in the sports section. I missed the whole thing without ever knowing it was here. Too bad, too, because Anthony Reyes was in the house. I would have loved to ask him some questions.

But failing that, here’s longtime State Journal-Register sports writer Hal Pilger’s piece on Reyes. I like the kid’s attitude about the Sid Ponson signing:

“As far as I know, I’m still in the mix. Hopefully in spring training I can compete for that job and win it. It’s going to be great, ’cause I like competition.