St. Louis Cardinals 2022
IlliniFan85
- Colorado Springs, CO
Had fun at the game tonight. Got to explain baseball to my 10 yr old. She also got introduced to Nooooooot. Lol. His first triple was a rocket. It said only 108 but damn was it fast. His 2nd I called when I saw it land.
And not sure why Pop Warner left DeJong out to dry like that. He should not have sent him. I had to look to the outfield to see if the ball was missed when he rounded and Warner waved him in.
God I miss attending baseball games. I wish I lived in St. Louis. It is just so fun being at the park.
And not sure why Pop Warner left DeJong out to dry like that. He should not have sent him. I had to look to the outfield to see if the ball was missed when he rounded and Warner waved him in.
God I miss attending baseball games. I wish I lived in St. Louis. It is just so fun being at the park.
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
Quick hits: Nolan Arenado, Albert Pujols overpower Rockies in Cardinals' bounce-back bash
Arenado, back at his former home, and Pujols, back where he debuted, combine for two homers and seven hits and drive a five-run first inning to back Jose Quintana.
DENVER — One made his major-league debut there.
The other became a major-league star there.
Both made themselves comfortable at Coors Field and put on a show there Wednesday night.
Cardinals corner infielders Nolan Arenado and Albert Pujols, their hits in harmony in the middle of the Cardinals’ lineup, hit back-to-back homers in the sixth inning to punctuate their evenings and a 9-5 victory against Colorado. By the time Pujols’ 687th career homer cleared the wall and landed in the seats, he and Arenado both had a single, a double, and a homer. They each had two RBIs. Pujols, in his first start of the series and 3,034th game, added a fourth hit later.
With eight total bases he moved within 16 of tying Stan Musial for the second-most in major-league history.
Paul DeJong joined the hit jubilee by tying a career high with four hits, and outfielder Lars Nootbaar hit two triples — one to the right-center gap and the other to the left-center gap.
A day after allowing 22 hits, the Cardinals whacked 17.
They needed about that many as the ninth got really rocky for reliever Chris Stratton. Colorado had five singles before Stratton got a second out. The seven-run lead the Cardinals took into the bottom of the ninth assured that even with all the baserunners the tying run never came to the plate.
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
Cardinals' Nolan Arenado has contending team he craved, teammate he could not imagine
A day after getting 'smacked in the face,' Arenado leads Cardinals' 9-5 victory with personal highlight of back-to-back homers with 'favorite player' Pujols.
DENVER — The night last year the Los Angeles Angels cast Albert Pujols off their roster, Nolan Arenado finished fielding questions on a Cardinals’ Zoom press conference and, unprompted, wanted to send Pujols a message. He expressed “love” for Pujols, called him his “favorite player,” and concluded by saying how he hoped “you hear this one day.”
“I hope you get to go out the right way,” Arenado said.
He wanted Pujols’ career to get a deserving ending.
He did not believe he’d be a part of it.
“I never thought this could possible,” Arenado said late Wednesday night at Coors Field. “And having him hit behind me is pretty cool. Obviously going back-to-back with him is really cool. It’s pretty cool to be in a lineup with him – in a Cardinals uniform.”
Arenado and Pujols propelled a five-run first inning and a 9-5 victory Wednesday against Colorado. The first-inning statement came the day after the Cardinals lost 16-5 or, as Arenado put it, “got smacked in the face a little bit.” It was important, he added, “for us to come out with a little hunger, a little energy.” Mission accomplished. By the end of the sixth inning, Arenado and Pujols each had a double, a single, and a home run. The homers came back to back in the sixth inning to extend the Cardinals’ lead and firewall against the Rockies’ last at-bat threat.
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
Grounded reliever T.J. McFarland's departure symbolizes new whiff to Cardinals bullpen
Siding with a higher strikeout rate just a year after McFarland helped stabilize the bullpen with his grounders, Cardinals remove lefty, add Woodford.
Derrick Goold
DENVER — The Cardinals’ decision to remove veteran lefty T.J. McFarland from the roster was a response to an immediate need and the best illustration yet of an ongoing trend to reimagine how they populate their bullpen.
Ground balls are so last year.
Whiffs are the current rage.
A year after the Cardinals acquired McFarland and stabilized the bullpen because he threw strikes and got grounders, they designated the reliever for assignment, preparing for his potential release. The Cardinals brought back right-hander Jake Woodford to the active roster so he can provide innings if needed at Coors Field in a series that concludes Thursday. But the choice to move on from McFarland also was a matter of style. Lefty Packy Naughton had proven more effective in the role recently and had the fourth-best strikeout rate on the team, twice McFarland’s.
“I think you’re asking about balls in play,” manager Oliver Marmol countered when asked about the shift in approach for the bullpen in just a few months. “Yeah. Correct. Correct. At the end of the day, one guy has more swing-and-miss than the other. I love swing-and-miss.”
It’s quite a pivot from a year ago when the addition of McFarland and other grounded pitchers was heralded as the Cardinals’ model to exploit their elite defense. It also was a way to get a pitching staff that led the majors in walks and hit batters back in the strike zone, back to inviting weak contact, and no longer sabotaging itself.
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
Cardinals prospect Chandler Redmond makes minor-league history with 4 homer, 11-RBI game in Springfield
Redmond had a solo, two-run and three-run homer, plus a grand slam in the same game.
Daniel Guerrero
Chandler Redmond knew what was at stake when he stepped into the batter’s box for his at-bat in the eighth inning against Amarillo.
Redmond had already driven in eight runs and belted a solo homer, two-run homer, and a grand slam to tie the Springfield's single-game record for homers and set the record for most RBIs in a game.
Still, one more accomplishment awaited him on Wednesday night.
Redmond sent a 1-1 pitch over the right-center field wall for a three-run shot to make him Springfield's record holder for most homers (four) and RBIs (11) in game.
It also made him just the second minor-league player in history to achieve the home run cycle of hitting a solo, two-run, and three-run homer, plus a grand slam in the same game.
"Just going up there for the last at bat, knowing what was going on and what I needed to do was crazy because a lot of times, you know, you put too much pressure or whatever, and it doesn't happen, but I guess it was just one of those storybook nights,” Redmond said in a phone interview late Wednesday night.
BillyBob1
- Champaign
10 year old got to see Albert go deep!
Last year a college softball player hit the home run cycle. That's pretty cool. I am a little surprised the manager of the other team didn't intentionally walk him. It would be a jerk move but everyone except Redmond's family would forget in a year or two. Now a lot of people will remember this forever.Cardinals prospect Chandler Redmond makes minor-league history with 4 homer, 11-RBI game in Springfield
Redmond had a solo, two-run and three-run homer, plus a grand slam in the same game.stlpinchhits.com
Daniel Guerrero
Chandler Redmond knew what was at stake when he stepped into the batter’s box for his at-bat in the eighth inning against Amarillo.
Redmond had already driven in eight runs and belted a solo homer, two-run homer, and a grand slam to tie the Springfield's single-game record for homers and set the record for most RBIs in a game.
Still, one more accomplishment awaited him on Wednesday night.
Redmond sent a 1-1 pitch over the right-center field wall for a three-run shot to make him Springfield's record holder for most homers (four) and RBIs (11) in game.
It also made him just the second minor-league player in history to achieve the home run cycle of hitting a solo, two-run, and three-run homer, plus a grand slam in the same game.
"Just going up there for the last at bat, knowing what was going on and what I needed to do was crazy because a lot of times, you know, you put too much pressure or whatever, and it doesn't happen, but I guess it was just one of those storybook nights,” Redmond said in a phone interview late Wednesday night.
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
Same old Hudson............walked a batter in the bottom of the 1st.......walked 2 in the bottom of the 2nd and both scored on a double......
Pallante will replace Hudson in the rotation soon if not the next time around......................Marmol has stated many times that Hudson needs to pitch better and faster...his lack of control could be attributed to the TJ surgery somewhat but he wasn't exactly a strike thrower before the surgery.......
Ground balls and double plays are great but it seems most batters walked seem to find home plate when Hudson is on the mound..............
Pallante will replace Hudson in the rotation soon if not the next time around......................Marmol has stated many times that Hudson needs to pitch better and faster...his lack of control could be attributed to the TJ surgery somewhat but he wasn't exactly a strike thrower before the surgery.......
Ground balls and double plays are great but it seems most batters walked seem to find home plate when Hudson is on the mound..............
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
First 3 Rockies runs were batters who walked..............Cabrera seems to have lost a little velocity or movement on his pitches it seems like to me.........
I hope Woodford does well as he was pitching very good as a starter at Memphis.............
BillyBob1
- Champaign
Also Nootbaar not running out that ball to the pitcher that he botched. Usually always see youngsters run everything out.
They are very entertaining on air, can't imagine what they say off air. One of my favorites for radio and in studio work was Chris Duncan. He passed way to young. Duncan and Thompson together had the energy of frat buddies 24/7.
I was curious as to how badly Edman had cooled off, so I looked up articles from when he led the league in WAR. AS of one 6/23 article he had 4.1 bWAR. He is currently sitting at 4.3 WAR. So, over the last 1.5 months he's accumulated just 0.2 WAR.
On the other side of the spectrum, DeJong has been incredible. His OPS+ was in the 30s or 40s when he got sent down. It is currently 95. That means DeJong has put up numbers just shy of league average even though the majority of his plate appearances were from when he was one of the worst batters in baseball. If he keeps this up he'll surely end up an above average (over 100 ops+) batter on the season, which is something he hasn't done since 2018 (even in his All-Star season in 2019 he had just a 99 ops+)! Just a few months removed from being considered by most to be pretty much done. Baseball is crazy sometimes.
On the other side of the spectrum, DeJong has been incredible. His OPS+ was in the 30s or 40s when he got sent down. It is currently 95. That means DeJong has put up numbers just shy of league average even though the majority of his plate appearances were from when he was one of the worst batters in baseball. If he keeps this up he'll surely end up an above average (over 100 ops+) batter on the season, which is something he hasn't done since 2018 (even in his All-Star season in 2019 he had just a 99 ops+)! Just a few months removed from being considered by most to be pretty much done. Baseball is crazy sometimes.
Fangraphs actually tracked the slowest runners in baseball. Most of the players are either catchers, DHs, or first basemen. Cardinals have two of the top 3 slowest players in baseball (Yadi and Albert) but neither are the slowest. That goes to Yasmani Grandal of the White Sox.
Believe it or not, among MLB team's big 3s, the Cardinals Big 3 of Goldy, Arenado, and Edman have the highest combined WAR: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baseballs-best-teams-are-consolidating-their-star-power/
Sure, my point is not that Edman hasn't been valuable. It's that he was by some metrics the most valuable player in all of baseball for a couple months and then has been progressively cooling off to the point where he has been a replacement level player over the last month and a half, using those same metrics.
Plus that article you linked extrapolates current WAR to 162 games, which ignores trendlines. It has Edman at 6.2 WAR. Given how badly he has fallen off I'm not expecting he makes it there. In fact I wouldn't be surprised to see him squeezed a bit for playing time with DeJong raking at SS amd Gorman likely the preferred 2B against righties.
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I am not certain those WAR stats are right in that article. It says through August 7th, but wonder if they put the wrong date on it. Edman has cooled off with his bat lately and think knocked him down from in 6 WAR range to in the 4s. Edman is quite valuable on defense so that is why his WAR is still so high. Probably around a 2.3 on offense and 2.3 on defense. Having Goldy and Arenado puts the Cardinals in good position for the playoffs. It will take the supporting cast to take this team over the edge. Hopefully can have a few guys get hot at the right time 
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
Cardinals' run toward showdown with Milwaukee stumbles on walks, no relief vs. Rockies
Lefty Genesis Cabrera, who must be part of an edge the Cardinals can claim vs. division rival Brewers, lets tie game loose as Colorado scores six runs on his 13
DENVER — The moment where a tie game snapped and one series at Coors Field crumbled apart on the Cardinals might just be where they can find an edge in the National League Central.
If they can take what they have left and put it back together.
A three-hit day from Paul Goldschmidt, back-to-back home runs from two NL MVP candidates and three more hits from Corey Dickerson were not enough Thursday to overcome how the Cardinals sabotaged themselves. Starter Dakota Hudson walked four, Jordan Hicks walked two more and the first four Rockies to score first reached base on walks. Capitalizing on that generosity catapulted Colorado to an 8-6 victory and a series win. The game broke for the Cardinals in the seventh when lefty Genesis Cabrera faced four batters, allowed six run to score on 13 pitches, and did not get the one thing needed from him.
An out.
What had been a 2-2 tie when Cabrera took over quickly became a six-run deficit when he allowed two runners who walked to score and then homers to consecutive Rockies.
“People on base because they walked, and then when you hit homers they count for more,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “Don’t love those.”
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
Cardinals notebook: Lars Nootbaar earns crack at being in combination to unlock leadoff
The top spot of the Cardinals order has struggled to produce despite multiple hitters trying. Next up, Nootbaar. Also: Flaherty's rehab and Pujols considers gifts.
\DENVER — At the beginning of the turnaround that has Lars Nootbaar’s playing time increasing and spot in the Cardinals lineup rising, a coach showed him what he was missing.
Packy Elkins, the Cardinals’ run production coach, showed Nootbaar detailed views of his approach through the grid of the strike zone. Nootbaar saw how he was swinging at pitches outside the zone at one level and ignoring pitches in the zone at another level, creating a hole in his coverage that opposing pitchers exploited.
He could see what he had to close.
“Talking to him was an eye-opener for me,” Nootbaar said. “I pride myself on having a decent eye, and early in the season, I just wasn’t.”
As manager Oliver Marmol searches for the right combination that unlocks the top of the of order, Nootbaar made his start of the season at leadoff Thursday against Colorado. He opened the game with a double, and as the Cardinals tried to mount a tying rally in the ninth at Coors Field, he drew a one-out walk. That was his second walk of the game and 12th since the All-Star break, two more in his past 63 plate appearances than he had in his first 101 this season.
While two triples Wednesday and another ball to the wall at Coors Field have been the highlights, the walks have been the undercurrent of Nootbaar’s spike in production. He’s hit .312 in his past 17 games, slugged .521.
“Hard contact and getting on base,” Marmol said.
pruman91
- Paducah, Ky
Minor-league report: Jordan Walker and Masyn Winn combine for six hits, six RBIs
Jordan Walker and Masyn Winn combined for six hits and six RBIs as Springfield routed Amarillo 21-4.
Daniel Guerrero
The bats stayed hot for the Class AA Springfield on Wednesday against Amarillo as the S-Cards set club records in runs and homers in a game en route to a 21-4 win against the Sod Poodles.
Springfield’s explosive offense included three-RBI games by top prospects Jordan Walker and Masyn Winn, multi-hit games throughout the lineup, and an historic four-homer, 11-RBI game from Chandler Redmond.
After a night of strong offense by Springfield hitters, here are some of the notable performances from around the Cardinals minor-leagues:
Hits
Right fielder Jordan Walker, Class AA Springfield: Walker singled home a run in the first inning to open up the scoring for a game that Springfield set a single-game club record in runs with 21. The 20-year-old’s contributions to the outburst continued in the seventh when he hit one of Springfield’s eight homers, which was also a single-game club record.