It’s likely that I’m the last person on Earth to learn this (I only recently found out that the Internet is on computers now), but your pal and mine, Dan of Get Up, Baby, has been added to the fold of AOL’s Sports Bloggers Live as a contributor to the AOL Sports World Series Blog.

Here’s how AOL puts it:

It’s a Tigers blogger — Bill from Detroit Tigers Weblog — vs. a Cardinals blogger — Dan from Get Up, Baby! — as Detroit and St. Louis play for the championship.

Let me be the first (as far as I know) to offer Dan a hearty congratulations for landing such a cool gig. Make Springfield proud, dude.

Hello, boys and girls… it’s time for another cop-out links post! Where bloggers and journalists more talented than I get the respect they so richly deserve! Enjoy, bitches:

• Three down… (Viva El Birdos)
• Today, Life is Good (Cardinals Diaspora)
• NLCS Preview: Game 6 (CardNilly)
• Six down, five to go (The FYC)
• Going the other way (Go Crazy Folks!)
• Cards/Mets Game 5 (Stan Musial’s Stance)
• NLCS Game V — Postgame Thoughts (The Cardinal Curmudgeon)
• Birds of Pray (New York Times; registration required)
• Reversal of Fortune (Yahoo! Sports)
• The Cardinals Compass (Yahoo! Sports)

Game 1 of the National League Championship Series is still five (less by the time you read this) hours away, so I’ll try to fill that time by seeing what the Mets bloggers have to say:

*Matthew Cerrone of the aptly-named MetsBlog talks with Will Leitch, Deadspin.com editor and Cardinals partisan. Matthew asks will how the Mets should approach Albert Pujols, and Will says:

The best way to deal with Pujols is to not anger him.

On the real.

*Greg at Faith and Fear in Flushing applies his eponymous concept to the NLCS and takes a look back at the teams’ rivalry in the Pond Scum Era.

*Eric Simon at Viva El Birdos’ corporate brother Amazin’ Avenue does an alphabet-soup, head-to-head analysis of the teams’ lineups and starting pitchers.

*Andrew Hintz at MetsGeek plays devil’s advocate and gives a plain-English look at the Cardinals probable starters.

*Jaap Stijl at Archie Bunker’s Army says Mets in five.

(Tom Gannam/AP)

Way to rise to the occasion, Jason.

In what most certainly will be his last start wearing the Birds on the Bat, Jason Marquis had what has become a typical Jason Marquis outing: 6 earned runs on 5 hits and 3 walks in 2 innings and his 35th home run allowed.

In losing his eighth of his past 10 decisions, his ERA jumped to 6.02. Six earned runs every nine innings, over the course of a full season. And for that, he was paid $5.15 million.

So, how bad was he?

He was SO BAD, that, even with 33 starts, he didn’t reach his first performance incentive: $25,000 for 200 IP. He’ll finish with 194.1 IP, or roughly 17 outs per start.

Just for giggles, let’s break this down further. In 2006, Jason Marquis made:

• $5.15M, or
• $26,500.90 per inning pitched, or
• $8,833.63 per out, or
• $68,666.67 per base on balls, or
• $147,142.86 per home run

See ya next year in Kansas City, pal.

For more Rage Against the Marquis, see:

• Good God (Bellyitcher)
• Twisting the knife (Redbirdbrain)
• Deathwatch, Day 9 (Stan Musial’s Stance)

It’s getting to be the time of year when The Great Northeast Media Hype Machine begins acknowledging the existence of teams outside the New York-Boston sphere.

The past couple of days, the Old Grey Lady herself has published a couple of stories in which the Cardinals feature prominently. (stories may require registration)

The first was a piece, which ran Friday, about noted fantasy baseball expert Ron Shandler, who’s the author of the long-running “Baseball Forecaster” and runs BaseballHQ.

His success at those ventures led to him getting a job with our Cardinals:

Shandler’s reputation caught the attention of Jeff Luhnow, who was appointed vice president for player procurement by the Cardinals after the 2003 season.

“I was an entrepreneur and did two technology companies on the West Coast,” Luhnow said. “And when you start a company, you oftentimes pull together a group of experts that can add a little credibility to your company.”

Shandler’s deal with the Cardinals allowed him to keep working on Baseball HQ and “Forecaster,” which Times reporter Benjamin Hoffman touches on:

A few weeks before the Cardinals acquired (Mark) Mulder in December 2004, a negative report about Mulder appeared in “Baseball Forecaster” with the comment, “Risk-averse drafters might want to spend their money elsewhere.”

Well, Jeff Luhnow, if you’re paying a guy for his advice, why didn’t you follow it?

When the trade was completed, Shandler’s followers questioned the integrity of his report, with some suggesting that he had given Mulder a poor evaluation in an effort to lower his trade value.

Even if those accusations were true, the Cardinals didn’t seem fazed at all by the report and pulled the trigger for Mulder. No wonder Shandler quit:

“After a while it was like, ‘Why am I spinning my wheels here? I don’t know if they’re taking my information into account when making their moves.’ ”

No, they sure didn’t take the advice they were paying you supply. It’s kind of funny; on the TV in the background as I type this post is a “Who’s #1″ program on ESPN2 about “Trade Robberies.” While this trade doesn’t rate on the all-time MLB list, it’s certainly the worst since the Van Slyke-Pena deal, possibly since the Carlton-Wise deal.

But we already knew that.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The second article about the Cardinals ran in Sunday’s Times, this time written by the esteemed Murray Chass.

In it, Chass takes a look at the Cardinals recent woes, which we know all about, but which nobody inside the Northeast media orbit seems to know about.

The first few paragraphs compare the fortunes of the Cardinals and the Dodgers, teams that on July 26 were 58-42 and in first place and 47-55 and in last place, respectively. What’s happened since, Murray?

Seven weeks later, after they played their games last Wednesday, the Cardinals still led the N.L. Central, with a 77-68 record, and the Dodgers were in first place in the N.L. West with a 77-68 record.

[snip]

In that seven-week span, the Dodgers had a 30-13 record and the Cardinals went 19-26. The fortunes of the two teams were reflected in eight-game losing streaks. The Dodgers lost their eighth consecutive game July 26, then began an 11-game winning streak in their next game. (They won 17 of 18.) The Cardinals began an eight-game losing streak July 27 and haven’t really recovered.

Chass then plays the “What’s Wrong With the Cardinals?” game, going through the laundry list of stuff we’ve known for weeks: starting pitching, relief pitching, nobody hits but Pujols, etc.

I’m not sure why this story bugs me; it’s not like it’s nothing I don’t know already. Maybe it’s that whole patronizing you’re-not-in-the-Northeast-you’re-not-important attitude that’s implicit in these kinds of stories. It’s like playoff time is the only time of year they can acknowledge the existence teams elsewhere in the United States.

Following his home run leading off the bottom of the eight, how many of you started rooting for Ramon Ortiz to get his no-hitter?

Don’t lie.

Obviously, it was not meant to be as Aaron Miles broke it up in the top of the ninth (with Albert Pujols ruining the shuttie with a gargantuan shot into the upper deck at RFK). But isn’t witnessing such an occurence always fun, even if it’s against your team?

Ortiz certainly was an unlikely candidate for a no-no, as he had gone 0-3 with an 11.42 ERA in his past four starts. He certainly lived up to his “Little Pedro” nickname on Sunday.

Going into Sunday’s tilt, Ortiz seemed the rough equivalent of Jason Marquis, having accumulated a 9-12 record with a 5.34 ERA, 88/55 K/BB ratio and 24 dingers given up in 158.1 innings. Marquis was 14-12 with a 5.86 ERA, 83/63 K/BB and 31 homers allowed in 172 innings.

So it certainly wasn’t crazy to expect a score akin to a Rams-Redskins tilt rather than the well-pitched duel we got Sunday. Hats off to both starters; do it again in five days, Jason.

Other reaction in the blogosphere:

• Near Nats Labor Day No-No (Mr. Irrelevant)
• If Ifs and Buts Were Candy and Nuts (The Curly W)
• A Labor Day to Remember (Just A Nats Fan)
• OOOOH!!! SO CLOSE!!! (Nats320)
• Oh no, no no-no! (The Beltway Boys)
• Ramon Ortiz almost did what? (Fungoes)
• High sock mojo (College of Cardinals)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As long as we’re talking about the Nationals blogosphere, be sure to check out The Curly W’s five questions that were pitched to fellow Cardinals bloggers/writers Scott at Cardnilly, Matthew Leach of stlcardinals.com and OYNAG fame and new Viva El Birdos correspondent Erik “The Rev” Manning. Among the questions:

One of the Nats bloggers has an obsession with former Nats and current Cards backup catcher Gary Bennett. Does he get this level of esteem in the Cards’ blogosphere?

He certainly did last week.

…Albert Pujols would have no luck at all.

In a diary on Viva El Birdos, commenter Hummingbird takes a look at El Hombre’s batting average on balls in play, or BABIP, which measures a hitters average when they put the ball in play. (For a quick and dirty primer on BABIP go here) A higher-than-average BABIP suggests that a hitter is getting lucky, and vice-versa.

If I am to understand correctly, Albert’s career BABIP is .324. (The average National League BABIP last year was .295). Hummingbird’s research shows that this year, Al’s BABIP stands at .276 after Sunday’s game, suggesting he’s actually been unlucky with the lumber this season. Hard to believe, I know

But the following two sentences blew my mind:

I was wondering what his numbers would be like if his BABIP were more in line with his 2001-2005 average, so I gave him 17 more singles to raise his BABIP to .323. With those 17 extra singles – singles, mind you – added to his numbers, Albert’s line would be a frightening .360/.456/.720, which is top-30 all-time territory. Yikes.

Yikes, indeed. I shudder to think what kind of ball-crushing damage a suddenly lucky (in terms of BABIP) Albert Pujols could do.

More Cardinals-related goodness on sj-r.com… today’s poll is what the Cardinals’ biggest need is as the trade deadline makes its inexorable march.

Unfortunately, you can register only one choice. I vacillated between “slugging outfielder” and “top starter” before eventually going with the pitcher.

Speaking of slugging outfielders… ya hear Carlos Lee is now a Ranger?

SJ-R.com has another fun Cardinals poll up. This time you get to pick the greatest all-time Cardinal.

If you asked me 20 years ago, I would say Ozzie Smith. Ask me in 20 years and I’d say Albert Pujols. Today, though, I picked the Pride of Donora, Pa. And I don’t mean Steve Filipowicz.

(It’s my understanding that these polls last only one day. If you came across the other post about sj-r.com polls, the McGwire poll may have closed.)

As part of their ever-evolving online presence, The State Journal-Register, the newspaper here in Springfield, has started online sports polls.

A couple of recent polls have been whether Greg Maddux should be traded and whether you enjoy listening to the Moonman on Cardinals radio broadcasts.

Tuesday’s poll asks the immortal question:

Would you vote for Mark McGwire as a Hall-of-Famer?

They didn’t include a “You gotta be shittin’ me, Pyle!” option, so I just voted no.

It’s hard to feel good about a guy who shrivels in the face of a grandstanding congressional panel. He was entirely within his rights to repeatedly whine “I’m not here to talk about the past,” but that answer tells me that his past is something he’s not proud of. Otherwise, he’d gladly talk about it.

So, again, I voted no (speaking of grandstanding) for McGwire in the Hall. When I registered my choice at about 1:30 p.m., the results were split 50-50. As of about 2:15 it was about 55-45 to the “no” side.

Head on over to sj-r.com and go skew the poll results. J.P. will thank you.