Daddy issues

James A. Finley/AP

Albert Pujols entered Thursday’s game against the Dodgers with a career batting line of 9-for-14 (.643) with four homers against Odalis Perez.

He exited the game at 10-for-15 with five homers.

Odalis Perez: Who’s your daddy?

Curious move by Grady Little to bring in Perez, who has the aforementioned Daddy issues with Pujols (and with Scott Rolen, to a lesser extent), when Danys Baez, who obviously handles right-handers better, was still available. Plus, Pujols has never faced Baez, a situation that might work in the pitcher’s favor. Was Baez being “saved” for closing out a Dodgers’ lead? Kind of a moot question now, I guess, but nobody accused Grady Little of being handy with the bullpen.

Other things I think:

Jason Marquis won his third straight start, with a 3.17 ERA and a 14/5 K/BB ratio in that period, which followed two losses in which gave up 20 earned runs in 11 innings, which followed a stretch in which he won six straight decisions but had a K/BB ratio of 17/21, which followed four straight losses, etc. To say he’s confounding is something of an understatement. Good Marquis Thursday, though. So, yay!

Jim Edmonds went 1-for-6, but the 1 was huge, a game-tying two-run homer in the seventh. Things are looking up for Jimmy Ballgame: He’s .306/.400/.750 during July. Eight of his 11 hits have been for extra bases, and he’s routinely making the great catches again. Welcome back, brother.

Jeff Weaver makes his Cardinals debut as a pinch-hitter?

On the Lidge

Wednesday’s game ended up as a mark in the wrong column, but it was a treat to watch. Certainly, our crimson-clad superheroes played a hard nine. Some things I think:

Jason Marquis: I either called this one, or I jinxed him. I left a comment on VEB’s Game 28 thread about 10 minutes before first pitch:

“… pitching against your team’s actual rival, who is sending out the guy who ended our season last year, would tend to get a guy geeked up. And a geeked-up Jason Marquis tends to overthrow, which is bad news for a sinkerballer.”

Sho ’nuff, Marquis came out locked and loaded with both barrels blazing… and

My 26 cents

Good thing it’s spring break or the Cubs fan moms at preschool would be giving me a hard time today.

I had the game on at work and, like Isaac Effing Newton, have a few observations:

Sidney Ponson: Dude looked pretty good. He kept the ball down for the most part and got away with his few mistakes save for one big one. He threw strikes, too; Cubs hitters managed seven hits off of him, but he also didn’t walk anyone. A poster on VEB’s Game 6 thread wished El Sid could have gone six innings; I’m guessing the big fella was gassed after those 82 pitches. Still early and all that.

Juan Encarnacion: Four more left on base for Instant Breakfast, upping his season total to 6,423. Even I am starting to lose my patience with him. Gotta remind myself: 156 games left, 156 games left, etc. It’s pretty bad, though, when after he strikes out with the bases loaded you say, “At least he didn’t ground into a double play.” I think all you 26th Man readers who are going to today’s opener are going to have to show him some special STL love to try to get him going.

Jim Edmonds: Speaking of needing to get someone going, what on Earth is up with James Patrick E? His one hit Sunday raised his batting average to a whopping .174 (same as InstBrek), and his OPS is somewhere in the middle six hundies. He’s had some bad at-bats, at times looking foolish. We all know how streaky he can be, but I don’t think I’ve seen him look this bad.

Bullpen: Shades of 2003? What looked so good in Philly looked terrible in the CHI. I thought we might see Looper in the sixth, but Wainwright was mostly excellent for his 1.2 innings, including a key whiff of DLee. After Rincon left with a runner on in the eighth, I thought for sure we’d see Looper. Nope… in came Izzy, and we all know how that one turned out: Twenty pitches, eight strikes, one of which was an extremely loooooong strike. I’m thinking that Braden Looper might just have his very own wing in the TLR doghouse. He was brought in to pitch the eighth, and the Braintrust obviously doesn’t trust him in that role yet. The Wainwright boy is going to get a chance there sooner than later.

Positives: There’s a few, namely Rolen. He seems to be on the way back to his usual selfness. Carpenter has hit the ground running as well. Let’s hope the Warm Fuzzies from opening the new yard can wash away the bitter taste of … of… (insert Sideshow Bob groan here) being swept by the hated Cubs.

Second opinion

The handwringing continues in Cardinal Nation, this time about whom to bat No. 2.

Both Derrick Goold and Matthew Leach report that the unofficial official line is that Instant Breakfast is going to start in between Eckstein and Pujols.

Both writers have concerns with Encarnacion’s relatively low on-base ability. And because this is the Internet (where everyone’s opinion matters!), I’m going to go out on a limb and share those concerns. But the only solid on-base guys on the team are its run producers: Pujols, Rolen and Edmonds.

As we all know, TLR batted Edmonds No. 2 quite a bit last season, a spot where Edmonds scuffled and kind of chafed at. Thanks to The Worldwide Leader’s extensive stat splits, we can compare how Edmonds and Encarnacion fared batting second during the past three seasons:

Edmonds: .236/.333/.528, 37 BB in roughly 330 PA
InstBrek: .143/.217/.190, 2 BB in 23 PA

Eep. About the nicest thing we can say is that Encarnacion has, um, limited experience batting second. The past three seasons, anyway. I can’t help but think that, given TLR’s fetish for a “Damager” in the 2 hole, we wouldn’t be so crabby if Spives wasn’t having such a lousy spring. He’s got decent enough OBP (when healthy) and decent enough pop (when healthy).

My uneducated opinion is that there should be the magical Good Situational Hitter batting second, a la Placido Polanco. This team’s best GSH is David Eckstein. Think about it: How many times have we seen him poke one in between first and second or drop down a great bunt? Unfortunately, he’s also our best leadoff type. So it’s there he says. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

So, it appears that the No. 2 hole goes to Encarnacion by default. What a way to build a lineup.

Edmonds rules and everything, but…

In my last post, I offered a totally uneducated idea of what to do with Jim Edmonds after this season based on a story filed by Ken Rosenthal on FoxSports.com The second half of that story posits that if Edmonds meets certain milestones, he becomes a legitimate Hall-of-Fame candidate.

Huhwhat, now?

For a player who played in the era he played in, 400 HR is not going to cut it. And face it, for non-pitchers, the Hall of Fame is almost entirely a Hall of Guys Who Were Transcendent Offensive Players during their time, your Musials, your Mantles, your Mayses, just to name a few outfielders whose last names begin with M.

Yeah, guys have gotten in without reaching the 500-HR plateau. Take Willie Stargell, who hit 475 HR (same as Musial). He was flat-out dominant for a decade or more during his time. Edmonds really only has been superlative offensively during his tenure with the Cardinals, which began in his age 30 season. Or Lou Brock, who had 3,000-plus hits and was rumored to have gaffled a base or two during his career. Edmonds? 1,619 hits and counting. He might have a higher OPS+ than other, recent inductees such as Dave Winfield and Robin Yount, but those guys also have passed the illustrious 3,000 hits barrier.

About that 10 Gold Glove plateau? By my reckoning, there’s only three guys in the Hall for their defense: Brooks Robinson, Bill Mazeroski and Ozzie. And 10 wouldn’t even be the most among outfielders: Ken Griffey Jr. has 10 already, Mays and Roberto Clemente each have 12.

All this, and he’s never won an MVP award. He’s finished in the Top 5 only in two of the six years he’s gotten votes.

And this is coming from a fan of Jim Edmonds. I love watching the guy play baseball, and I don’t understand how people can not love watching him play. He goes all out, all the time. What some people call drama, I call effort and hustle. I’ve seen so many opposing hitters drive a ball into the gap, and invariably, Edmonds almost always tracks it down. It’s to the point where you don’t even have to look. He’s spoiled us to the point of it becoming routine. He’s still pretty special to watch.

But he just got started at it too late to be considered Hall-worthy. His four full seasons in Anaheim were pretty good, but four pretty good seasons plus six superlative does not a Hall of Famer make.

The Jim Edmonds situation

The eminently readable Ken Rosenthal is at it again. Over at FoxSports.com, he waxes prosaic about the Jim Edmonds Situation.

Specifically, what do the Cardinals do after 2006? Edmonds is due $12 million this season, and the team can either exercise its $10M option or buy him out for $3M and say, “Peace out, dawg.”

His 2006 obviously will have a great deal to do with whether that option gets picked up. Edmonds’ 2005 was his worst season offensively since coming to St. Louis, and dude is entering his age 36 season. The difference between 2004 and 2005 may have signaled the inevitable dropoff.

On the other hand, the guy is still pretty effing good. I’d certainly take a near-certain 900-plus OPS and peerless defense. Besides, who else is gonna play there after this season? Juan Encarnacion? He probably could play a passable CF, but it’s never good to be the guy after The Guy. Larry Bigbie? Prentice Redman?

So let’s just assume, for argument’s sake, that he plays well enough in 2006 for Walt & Co. to want him around to achieve 400 HR (currently at 331) and 10 Gold Gloves (at eight) while wearing the Game’s Best Uniform. Let’s pick up that 2007 option, then work an extension to replace it. Something along the lines of $12M for ’07 (the original $10M plus a li’l something for his trouble), $8M for ’08 and an incentives-based (I’m thinking plate appearances) $7M vesting option (or, if the option doesn’t vest, the $3M buyout) for ’09. You’d figure that by 2007, there might be a little wiggle room in the budget for another $12M salary and that by ’09 he’d still be good enough after meeting his incentives to make that $7M a good deal for a 39-year-old player.

Clear as mud?