Bits and Pieces

Baseball

Viva El Birdos has an excellent entry about the NL MVP Race, highlighting five players in Pujols, Ryan Howard of the Phillies, Carlos Beltran of the Mets, Miguel Cabrera of the Marlins and Lance Berkman of the Astros.

In the last week, Gary Bennett's stats are as follows: .643 BA, 3 HR, 8 RBI and an astounding 1.978 OPS.

When looking at the numbers from 2002 to 2006, (so as to figure out the impact of the steroids policy), most major offensive categories are up in 2006, including runs per game, home runs per game(which peaked during the period in 2004), doubles per game, and aggregate slugging.

ESPN's pre-season picks: How good do they look now?

David Ortiz's year could be derailed due to heart problems. Ortiz was making a run to become the first DH to win the MVP award.

Everything Else

Andre Agassi wins his first round match! In 2002, another American legend, Pete Sampras, played his last US Open and rode the wave of emotion to a victory. Why can't Agassi do it? Well, maybe because players like Roger Federer are dominant now, as opposed to 2002, when Lleyton Hewitt was probably the most dominant player. (Hewitt is still very good, but when someone of the stature of Hewitt is the best in your sport, it's a down period in your sport, historically.)

Toni Kukoc could return to the Bulls! (Note: The Article is actually about a Katrina victim, if you're only interested in the part about Kukoc, it's about half-way down.)

Nelly to the Warriors: Don Nelson is reportedly to return to coaching in Golden State. Nelly does coach an exciting brand of basketball, albeit one where defense is not strongly encouraged. On a roster with Jason Richardson and Baron Davis as the likely starting backcourt, it'll be interesting to see how the other parts fit in(such as newly drafted center Patrick O'Bryant, who seemingly had the footspeed of a snail in the NCAAs). Nelly last coached the Dallas Mavericks before retiring and handing over the reigns to Avery Johnson.

Stats about Izzy

Jason Isringhausen is having a season to forget as the closer of the St. Louis Cardinals. Although he has 31 saves, a very respectable total, he has blown 9 saves, for a 78% save percentage, which is the 4th worst listed on the Closer Report by closers with 20 save opportunities or more.

Looking at stats for Izzy, I was curious to see what else was true statistically.

Looking at the same closer report as well as other splits, I compiled these stats, which I found to be interesting:

Izzy has compiled a WHIP(Walks+Hits Per Inning Pitched) of 1.38, which again, among listed closers with 20 opportunities, is 4th worst.

He has 7 losses, worst among listed closers.

His K/BB ratio is 1.47, the worst among closers with 20 opps. Meanwhile, his K/9 is actually not bad at 8.28, which is middle of the pack among closers. (this tells us that it's not that Izzy's lack of strikeouts that keeps that K/BB ratio so bad, but rather his high walk total.)

Against left-handed batters, Izzy gives up the line of .371/.432/.803 (On-base/Slugging/OPS)

The closest player equivalent would be Edgar Renteria(Yes, I know he's right-handed, but statistically, it's the closest). Renteria this year has compiled the very similar stats of .372/.437/.809. So everytime Izzy faces an average lefty, he turns them into a player of Renteria's stature(not a superstar, but definitely a very above average player).

For those of you with ESPN Insider access, you can look at his pitching zones, which shows you how often a pitcher throws to a certain area either on or off the plate. Against right-handed hitters, Isringhausen pounds the outside corner 58% of the time. He goes inside only 24% of the time. (The remainder are down the middle, not differentiating high from low.)

Again, going back to the idea of Izzy's problem being walks, his BAA(Batting Average Against) is a very strong .210. There are plenty of closers who are better, but .210 is very similar to the stats of Trevor Hoffman(.208), Mariano Rivera(.220), Francisco Rodriguez(.206) and Mike Gonzalez of the Pirates(.213) who incidently is perfect in save opportunities this year(24/24).

Lastly, Izzy's Ground ball to fly ball ratio this year is on pace to be the 2nd worst of his career at 1.14. His career worst was 1.07 in his last season in Oakland. Conversely, his BEST season was LAST year when he posted a 1.73 ratio, a very good indicator, arguably his best season as a Cardinal(2.14 ERA, 39/43 Save%).

Do any of these stats give us an answer for what Isringhausen needs to do differently? I guess it tells us he needs to cut down on the walks, but anyone who watches the game could have said that. They are interesting stats(at least to me though) that give us a little insight of just how bad Isringhausen has been this year.

Last note - I have actually typically been an Isringhausen supporter. He seems to be one of the dividing points among Cardinals fans. Most either adamantly support him as a good closer or can't stand him because he seems to make situations overly dramatic with his walks. Despite the fact that I think he's been a good closer in a Cardinals uniform, this year he's been pretty bad.

Top-tier pitching performances down in 2006

Looking at the ERAs of the top pitchers in each league the last few years, it is very evident that for some reason, the top pitchers just aren't performing as well this year so far.

Now, my numbers for 2005 are based on a full year's performance, so it's very possible that some of the top tier pitchers-your Brandon Webbs, Chris Carpenters, Carlos Zambranos-may still put up enough zeros at the end to lower their ERAs to a statisical area we're more used to.

Here are the number of pitchers in each the AL and NL that are under each of these ERA numbers:

2006
Under 3.00: AL - 0, NL - 3
Under 3.50: AL - 5, NL - 8
Under 4.00: AL - 14, NL - 18

Now, obviously there is a discrepency between AL and NL, but this isn't necessarily that NL pitching is better, but that they face a lineup featuring a pitcher as opposed to a designated hitter. Taking all the ERAs over the last 20 years has given an ERA differential between the AL and NL of .369(meaning if you want to have a statistical equivalent between an AL and NL pitcher, add .369 to the NL pitcher's ERA and it gives you a good starting point of comparison).

Now, looking at the number of pitchers in each league LAST season with similar ERAs:

2005
Under 3.00: AL - 2, NL - 7 (Including R. Clemens who was under a 2.00 ERA)
Under 3.50: AL - 9, NL -12
Under 4.00: AL - 21, NL - 27

I think it's typically a thing(at least in my mind) to really be overly critical of pitchers with ERAs that are actually very good. Mark Mulder last year had a 3.78 ERA, which I thought of as pretty good, but quite honestly, from a former Cy Young candidate, I expected more like 2.78 in the NL. But 3.78, even in 2005 would have put Mulder in the top 25, and this year he'd have been 15th in ERA.

So what has happened to the premier pitching this year? Roger Clemens actually has a 2.50 ERA, which would be #1, but he lacks the innings due to his late start this year. Carpenter and Oswalt were up there last year, and are both back, but not quite as good.

The Cy Young races will be drastically different. Last year we had Clemens with the sub 2 ERA vs. Carpenter, who was practically perfect all summer and had a very impressive win total, but who posted an ERA around 2.8 due to some lapses of concentration after the Cardinals clinched. Pitchers like Pettitte and Oswalt were posting awesome years that this year would be easily Cy Young worthy, but last year were overshadowed.

This year, we have Carpenter and Oswalt in the race again, along with Brandon Webb and Carlos Zambrano. None of these guys were as good as any of the top 4 were last year, but they're probably the top 4 this year.

My pick at this point is Webb, although I think Carpenter and Zambrano will get a lot of votes.

mini-update on past posts

On the idea that the Cardinals could become only the 2nd team to win a division without having a winning record against their division: It's looking very unlikely. The Cardinals have already climbed from the previously posted 28-32 to 31-32 and hold a 2 game lead over the Cincinnati Reds. Obviously they're on the verge of pulling into positive territory here with that division record, and if they only play .500 the rest of the way against the division, the likelihood is that the Reds will pass them and the Cardinals wouldn't win the division anyway.

The Cubs have called upon another rookie, promoting Les Walrond from AAA Iowa to the big club. Walrond's AAA stats are reasonably good, as he posted a 3.77 ERA* and went 9-3* in 20 starts. He's put up 133.1 innings. He's also had 11 appearances as a reliever. Overall, his stats are 3.98, 10-5 record. If he stays in the rotation the rest of the year, he'd be likely to make 6 total starts, given that there are 33 games left on the Cubs' schedule. Taking into consideration all the other pitchers the Cubs have that might come back into the rotation(Miller, O'Malley, Marshall, even longshots at Prior and Wood) and the fact that, ya never know, Dusty might find a way to break this new kid too, I'm putting the over/under on games started at 3. Feel free to post a comment as to whether you'd take the over or under. Free lollipops to winners**.

Lastly, here's a fun link. It's two guys seemingly practicing or goofing around doing penalty kicks with a soccer goal. This is something you would NEVER see in World Cup(but it would be awesome if you did).


* - Walrond's 9-3, 3.77 is as a starter only in AAA, as was posted below, his overall stats are 10-5, 3.98

** - Not really.

Peaking as a rookie

The Cardinals made what I thought at the time was a questionable trade to bring in 2nd baseman Ronnie Belliard in exchange for young utilityman Hector Luna.

My original post was on July 31st. Here's the direct link.

My arguments were pretty simple and mostly based on Luna's youth and much cheaper salary, coupled with the fact that Luna is nowhere NEAR free agency.

Now I have a whole new set of reasons why I think this was a bad trade though.

Looking at Ronnie Belliard's stats over his career, I find it pretty evident that in his career, he had a very good rookie season in 1999, for which I'm shocked he wasn't in the Rookie of the Year vote anywhere. Continuing down the line though, in many important statistics, he has never lived up to his rookie season.

For the most part, Belliard is a one-hit wonder living off of the mediocrity of the 2nd base position in baseball today.

Here's his rookie stats:

124 G, 8 HR, 58 RBI, 4 SB, .295 BA, .379 OBP, .429 Slugging for a .808 OPS

That year represents his career highs in batting average(.273 career), OBP(.340 career) and OPS(.752 Career) and 2nd best in slugging(.450 in 2005, when it seems like he thought he was a home run hitter, with a very lacking .325 OBP)

This season with the Indians, he was having a relatively good year for him, batting .291 and slugging .420, although his on-base still sucked at .337, but now with the Cardinals, his season stats through 19 games are very Aaron Miles-ish, (who incidently is the guy the Cardinals had BEFORE Belliard that they felt they needed to replace so badly).

Here are their stats(BA/OBP/Slugging/OPS)

Miles - .262/.334/.348/.682
Belliard - .264/.312/.361/.673

So thusfar this season as a Cardinal, Belliard has been an offensive DOWNGRADE from Aaron Miles.

In addition, another reason to be frustrated with this trade is Belliard's plate discipline. Where most players seem to become better at judging the strike zone and taking pitches as they mature as a player, the exact OPPOSITE has happened with Belliard. If you use the #P/PA stat on ESPN(Number of Pitches per Plate Appearance), you see that with Belliard, the number has declined almost every year he has played.

His rookie year in 1999, his #P/PA was 3.94 and it dropped for 3 straight years after that down to 3.56, before in one fluke year in Colorado it jumped to 4.07, but then has quickly declined since then. This season with the Indians, he saw 3.36 pitches every time he went up, and with the Cardinals, it's only been marginally better at 3.49.

What do these stats mean? Is Ronnie Belliard the worst player in major league history?

Of course not.

But it does mean that we traded a young, cheap player for an expensive veteran in his walk year who has really declined every season since his rookie season. Belliard is now 31 and I see no reason to think he's going to get any better, but he certainly can continue to get worse.

Here's to hoping the Cardinals don't compound an error by resigning the 2nd baseman for next season.

This is just getting sad(CHC Pitching)

Normally I will only write in this blog about the Cubs to poke fun of them or when they happen to be playing my team, the Cardinals. However, who knows, it might happen more often since I'm now on the outer fringe of Chicago suburbs, since I get more Cubs/Sox news than Cardinals now.

But today we're writing about the Cubs.

It's straight up sad how much this team has been riddled with injuries. Obviously Derrek Lee is a big one, as he went from being the batting champion and 3rd in MVP votes to being out most of the season, and when he did come back briefly, he was a very mediocre first baseman, obviously with lingering effects from the injury.

But beyond that, let's focus on the pitching:

Kerry Wood, being paid 12M this year, has made 4 starts, going 1-2 in those 4 starts, and has spent the vast majority of the season on the DL.

Mark Prior, being paid 3.65M, carrying the expectations of once being considered among the top, most can't miss prospects in baseball, has started 9 games this season, going 1-6. He has also spent most of the season on the DL

Glendon Rusch, being paid 2.75M, has made 9 starts and pitched in relief in 14 games and is 3-8.
He has made two stints on the 15-day DL, most recently coming back on the 22nd.

Wade Miller, who was signed as an injured free agent, is being paid 1M and has not made a start. To be fair, this deal might not be bad still. Cardinals fans may remember that a few years ago they took a chance signing the rehabbing Chris Carpenter, who sat out a full year, resigned with the Cardinals, and then put together a strong season in 2004 and won the Cy Young in 2005. If Wade re-ups with the Cubs next year, who knows, he could re-emerge as a pitcher who matters again.

Even the young guys are in on the act.

Carlos Marmol, a young righty from the Dominican, was just placed on the DL with right shoulder fatigue. He has made 13 starts and compiled a 5-6 record, a very lofty record compared to his compatriots listed above.

Sean Marshall, another of the young guys, was placed on the DL on July 25th with a strained left oblique(a nasty injury for any baseball player, but I'd have to imagine it's REALLY bad for a pitcher.) For the season, he is 5-8 in 19 starts(an impressive number of starts for this list).

Last, but certainly not least, young lefty Ryan O'Malley, who threw 8 shutout innings against the Astros, left his most recent start with elbow pain and is reported to have an inflamed elbow. He is not on the DL at this time, but the report was read on WSCR(The Score) this morning.

Oh yeah, remember that guy Greg Maddux? Well, by trading him off, the Cubs acquired talented SS Cesar Izturis who was injured early this season and basically replaced when the Dodgers signed Rafael Furcal(Who the Cubs courted unsuccessfully). Izturis was placed on the 15-day DL today, the 23rd.

As a Cardinals fan, I do enjoy seeing the Cubs struggle. However, this list of injuries is just insane. Wood and Prior came into the season injured. Miller was signed with the intention of rehabbing him. So we'll take those out. However, all these young guys going down is just horrible. Some of this MUST be bad luck, however, when you see a team consistently have guys go down with injuries year after year, and the players range from veterans(Kerry Wood) to young prodigies(Prior), to even the guys you throw in to fill in when things are bad(Marmol, Marshall, O'Malley), there MUST be something going on there.

Dusty Baker's handling of pitchers has been long criticized and probably is partially the reason. I also question whether Rothchild could have anything to do with it. Having no idea what is said to the pitchers or how they are coached, this is completely ungrounded speculation, but there has been an obvious pattern in the Chicago Cubs rotation the last few years, culminating with this year.

I guess the real question is: How long will Cy Young candidate Carlos Zambrano's arm last?

Winning a division

The Cardinals are on pace to do something historic and very impressive.

With 40 games left in the regular season, they are 28-32 against the Central division. Obviously not an impressive mark.

This got me thinking.... Has any team ever won a division without actually winning in their division? So I looked it up going back to 1995, the first full season since divisional play.

Only one team has ever pulled off this feat: The 1996 Seattle Mariners. They went 18-21 against the West that year but still won the division. Of course, in 1996, they didn't have the weighted schedules where Seattle had to play half their games against their division.

Two other teams have only finished .500, the 1999 Houston Astros, who were 31-31 vs. the Central, and the 2000 Mariners, who finished 19-19 against the West.

Now, with 40 games left and Cincy on their heels at 2.5 out, it does seem somewhat unlikely that the Cardinals can pull this off. Should they not start winning a little more regularly, they'll likely lose the division to the Reds. Should they start winning more regularly, they'll probably end up at least .500 against the Central.

Of their 40 games, 21 are against the Central, so concluding the season 13-8 vs. the Central is what is necessary to draw the Cardinals 1 game over .500 against the Central.

Will they do it? Will they make history as only the 2nd team since divisional play to win a division despite not being able to win in their division?

Recap of the Reds series

The 2-2 series split with the Reds represented a lot of what is good and what is bad about this team so far this season. Let's look at the good news and the bad news.

The Good News

Everything went right in the opening. This looked like it would be a statement game that could turn the series in the direction of the Cardinals. They hammered out 13 runs on 4 home runs, including one from anemic batting catcher Yadier Molina, who had a good day at 2-5 with 4 RBI. In addition, Jeff Weaver pitched his best game as a Cardinal, going six innings and allowing one earned run while striking out seven. They got into the Reds bullpen early in a series opener, always a good thing, as it potentially puts more pressure on the starting pitching the following couple days.

Game four of the series was practically a replay of game one, with fewer runs. Four home runs(2 by Duncan, 1 by Edmonds and Spiezio, there's that lefty power that they've been lacking most of the year), only one run scored by the other side. Anthony Reyes pitched about as poorly as you can without giving up a run, which I put in the category of good news, because again, 0 ER!

Other good news: The split with the Reds, who the Cardinals are now 4-8 against, means that the Reds gain NO ground on the Cards and still sit 3.5 games back. This was a beautiful opportunity for both sides to make a statement, and down 2 games to 1, the Cards pulled out an excellent performance to keep the lead from being cut to only 1.5 games.

The Bad News

Jason Marquis was straight up BAD. In what could end up being Marquis's last start for awhile, he went 2.2 Innings, giving up 4 earned. La Russa's got to be getting frustrated with him, and as is written in excellent Cardinals blog Viva El Birdos, "the team looks ill whenever Marquis pitches". Also discussed is what will happen when Mulder returns. Mulder may be taking Marquis's place, and who knows, depending on which Weaver comes out next time(the 1 ER in 6 innings, or the one who is more responsible for the 6.79 ERA), we may even see them consider placing Jorge Sosa into the rotation.

Potentially even worse news, Chris Carpenter was rocked as well. Although he did go deep into the game, Carpenter was afforded a 4-0 first inning lead, and a 6-3 lead later, neither of which he held. Normally I wouldn't worry about Carpenter, as everyone is entitled to have a bad start, but last time out he did take a shot off of one of his pitching fingers. Hopefully there is no injury that we have to worry about.

Love of the Game!

In the Daily Southtown(a Chicago paper), there's a great article about true love of the game.

Luol Deng of the Chicago Bulls, who originally is from the Sudan, is acting as unofficial ambassador of the Great Britain Olympic basketball team, eyeing the 2012 Olympics. Britain is the host of the 2012 games and is guaranteed a spot in the field if they can come up with a team that can be competitive.

Deng and his family left the Sudan and was granted exile status in Great Britain, making it possible for him to represent Great Britain.

Deng claims that Britain has the best athletes(saying that only maybe France is anywhere near them) in Europe and that if they can establish a base of interest that the British team could flourish in both European and Olympic play.

Tell that to Dirk Nowitzki(Germany), Tony Parker(France), and Pau Gasol(Spain).

Ben Gordon, born in London, is also eligible for the team, but has declined the invitation.

Floyd Landis on Leno

Last night, embattled cyclist Floyd Landis appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Overall, he came off fairly positively, I thought. He seemed mostly confident, but on edge.

As Dan Le Batard of the Miami Herald(and a frequent guest host on ESPN's PTI) said several times, if you failed a drug test and had no idea how, you might have a lot of different guesses/excuses as to why. Therefore, I don't necessarily think that his different excuses everyday is a bad thing.

Also, from an interview I watched, one person said something to the effect that there have either been very few or no cyclists that have appealed this type of drug test and not had the ruling overturned. Which means, if Landis's case is similar to others, he might be found not guilty due to weak evidence.

On the Tonight Show though, for anyone who saw it: How uncomfortable did Landis look with Bill Maher there? Maher made one comment along the lines of "Why are we making such a fuss over a sport no one gives a shit about?" And Landis from that point on seemed almost like he wanted to really trash Maher but was uncomfortable, due to the fact that he wasn't sure what to say. Obviously someone who is in Landis's situation right now doesn't seem to go after some random political commentator right now over a comment made in jest. He needs all the public support he can get.

For now, I'm still on Landis's side. The way he carries himself, the way he has come out publicly(just as many people have said McGwire should have post-Congressional hearing), I can't imagine he intentionally did anything against the Tour's rules. However, I'm very skeptical at the same time. A good PR team could have basically set up this strategy for him and told him, "Get out there, it will make you a more sympathetic figure if people see you and get to like you."

I guess we'll see what the International Cycling Union does, but who knows whether that will tell the whole truth.

Headlines

Baseball

Jason Marquis was drilled again, and his spot in the rotation may not be secure with Mark Mulder likely returning from the DL after his next rehab start. Marquis has given up 23 earned runs and 40 hits in his last four losses, spanning 17 1/3 innings.

Dan O'Neill compares this inconsistent and rocky, yet successful version of the Cardinals to the World Series Champion 1982 squad, who had a similar record of 61-49 at this point of the season. This year's Cardinals are currently 61-51.

Jim Edmonds is resigned to the fact that his option may not be picked up. The Cardinals hold a $10M option for Edmonds next season, or can offer him a $3M buyout. Edmonds is growing frustrated and says playing in another uniform next season seems more and more likely.

The Cincinnati Reds are considered filing a grievance over Gary Majewski's health at the time of the trade that brought him over from Washington. Majewski was acquired from Washington in a July 13 trade. Majewski was treated for tendinitis with several cortisone shots prior to the All-Star break this season.

Manager of the Year candidate Joe Girardi reportedly has a rift with Florida's ownership. Chicago Tribune writer Paul Sullivan questions whether he would be available at the end of the season, when it seems more and more likely current Cubs skipper Dusty Baker will not be retained.

Basketball

Luciana Chavez of the Raleigh News Observer takes a look at the current U.S. Men's Olympic team, who has gone into their exhibition series without top shooters Michael Redd, Paul Pierce and J.J. Redick.

The "Let's See How Long Before I Get Fired!" game Isiah Thomas is playing shifted back into high gear, as he signed yet another small forward, this time in the very lanky and young Jared Jeffries. This does give the Knicks a very large front line, with a likely combination of Jared Jeffries at the 3, Channing Frye at the 4 and Eddy Curry in the middle.

In College Basketball, ESPN has up their summer rankings(although they're from June, I've been slow to look at the NCAA page during all the wedding fun that month). The Big 10 scores two top ten teams, Ohio State at #7 and Wisconsin at #9, but have no other teams in the top 25. The Big Ten is likely to have a down year again, with Illinois and Indiana now likely being bubble teams for this coming year's tournament. No conference was very dominant with the Top 10 though, with the Big 10, SEC, ACC and Big 12 all having two representatives.

Sagarins(MLB) and a little basketball

First off, for anyone who doesn't know who Jeff Sagarin is, he's a writer for USA Today. He does excellent rankings for virtually all sports. Most of the rankings are actually based on the quality of the team, and they're probably the most useful in judging NCAA Basketball teams. However, he also does baseball rankings, of players.

His prime ranking is RPG(Runs Per Game). The stat predicts how many runs a team would score if it was nine Scott Rolens hitting, or nine Carlos Beltrans, or even nine Ronny Cedenos(sorry Cubs fans).

Here's his top 10 hitters in the NL: (only counting players that have enough AB's to qualify for the batting title)

Rank / Player / RPG
1) Albert Pujols 9.79
2) Lance Berkman 8.77
3) Chipper Jones 8.70
4) Carlos Beltran 8.12
5) Nick Johnson 7.97
6) Jason Bay 7.88
7) Ryan Howard 7.77
8) Nomar Garciaparra 7.71
9) Scott Hatteberg 7.69
10) Miguel Cabrera 7.62

Obviously a lot of these aren't shocking. Pujols, Beltran, Berkman, Cabrera, and even Jason Bay are phenomenol hitters. I was a little shocked to see Nick Johnson and Scott Hatteberg make the list. However, both have OPS's of over .900(which is very good).

Now, we come to his pitcher's rankings. His stat is NPERA, which is supposedly what the pitcher's ERA "should be." If you want to know more about his stats, look at the page, although many of his formulas are not published as far as how they specifically are found.

The top 10(NL only, pitchers must have 1 inning pitched for the avg. amount of games each team has played)

Rank Pitcher NPERA
1) Pedro Martinez 2.40
2) Brandon Webb 2.75
3) Jason Schmidt 2.80
4) Chris Carpenter 2.85
5) Jeff Francis 2.96
6) Josh Johnson 2.97
7) Carlos Zambrano 3.04
8) John Smoltz 3.06
9) Derek Lowe 3.13
10) Matt Cain 3.16

Some big names again, and some pitchers having great years. This stat seems to punish some players(Josh Johnson, who actually has a 2.85 ERA, but adjusted jumps to close to 3) and is incredibly kind to others(Most notably Matt Cain, whose actual ERA is 4.62, a point and a half higher than his adjusted one). Without having seen the games, my only guess is that Matt Cain has suffered from poor defense(not errors necessarily, but maybe bad defensive placement or players with a lack of range) and perhaps by unfavorable park conditions.

These stats are obviously not an end-all for MVP and Cy Young, but they certainly could be used as an early indicator of who is in the race. The NL MVP race right now seems to be a 3-man race, with Albert Pujols battling 2 Mets(Beltran and David Wright - 15th on the list)

This could indicate that if the writers do the players justice, it could very well be down to Beltran and Pujols, depending on their teams' late season success and their own end of the season.

Meanwhile, the Cy Young favorites at this point are likely Brandon Webb, who has been fantastic for the D'Backs, Pedro, who has been the best pitcher for the best team(despite not getting many wins, Carlos Zambrano, who has 12 wins despite being a Cub, and probably in last on that list, but still alive and kicking, reigning Cy Young winner Chris Carpenter.

Here's hoping Pujols and Carpenter take off again and can give it a run at back-to-back awards for each.

Some Basketball Talk

The Olympic team so far looks good in exhibition, with impressive wins over Puerto Rico and China. A win over Puerto Rico may not seem like a big deal, but after the last Olympics, we're just looking for signs of dominance.

Kirk Hinrich, my boy on the Bulls, seems to be the favorite for the 2nd string Point Guard, behind Wade, which should mean he gets significant playing time(at least probably 12-15 minutes a game running the show) and as Sam Smith of the Tribune writes, Kirk is excited about two squads, both the Bulls squad where he is the longest-tenured player, and the Olympic squad. So far it seems they've gotten it right with Coach K and their current roster. They still lack depth as far as shooters though, which could be a problem.

New Layout

Did some work creating a new layout today. I hope everyone likes it.

You may notice there is one mostly unintrusive ad just above the first post. I know this is still a scarcely visited blog by mostly my friends, but if you see an ad that interests you, please take a moment and click it. Proceeds will go towards the American Cancer Society via my Relay for Life team that my wife and I participate in. If I can get myself some more publicity, I may look to get another ad put on the left side of the content, but for now, the one little one will do.

I hope you enjoy reading my blog and again, please help me raise money to beat cancer!

Ending the Streak

The 8-game skid is finally over after yesterday's 4-3 win over the Milwaukee Brewers.

Here's a look at the losing streak:

In 7 of the 8 games, the starting pitcher for the Cardinals took the loss, meaning their starting pitching was absolutely abysmal and was giving up early leads to the other team, all of which turned out to be insurmountable leads.
In the other game, the first of the losing streak, Jeff Weaver pitched poorly as well, giving up 4 ER in 5 2/3 innings. Tyler Johnson took the loss giving up an unearned run without recording an out in the 6th.

The Cardinals fell from 16 games over .500 to only 8 games over .500 before yesterday's loss. Amazingly, they retained their NL Central lead and still lead the Wild Card leading Cincinnati Reds by 2.5 games.

Also in 6 of the 8 games, the Cardinals pitchers gave up innings of 3 or more runs early in the game(first four innings). Two of these instances included 5 ER in the first two innings by Chris Carpenter in the closing game of the series vs. the Cubs and a 6-run 4th inning in the 2nd game of that same series, with Jason Marquis on the mound.

In the 8 games, the Cardinals committed 6 errors(one was questionably not an error, in the opening game vs. the Cubs, where an incredibly bad hop led to the Cubs scoring a key run that probably cost the Cards the game). The defense was incredibly shaky and the Cardinals are a defense and pitching team. They didn't have defense and as you see above, they certainly didn't have pitching.

The key offensive players weren't coming through. Albert Pujols was 7 for 31 (.226) over the stretch with 0 Home Runs. Edmonds and Rolen each had one run home over the stretch, but it came in the 16-8 debacle against the Phillies. Great timing, no? 8 runs in any other game during the stretch would have been a win or at least extra innings.

Eckstein also had trouble scoring runs, partially because he struggled to get on base and partially because no one behind him could drive him in.

Now, for last night's game: The pitching was reasonably good. Rookie Anthony Reyes went 5 and gave up 3 ER, not a great start, but he kept the team in it. Bullpen arms Braden Looper and Jason Isringhausen were excellent, taking 3 innings between them and giving up 1 hit and 1 walk only(both by Looper). Pujols broke his homerless streak, which has reached 33 at-bats. Rolen and Edmonds were each 1-3, with Rolen driving in a run and Edmonds scoring one. Eckstein still struggled, but the other good news: No errors!

Amazingly, they're still playing .500 ball since the break as they were 10-3 prior to the skid(thanks primarily to being 7-0 against the Dodgers, can we trade the Cubs or Reds to the NL West for the Dodgers?)

They are an overall 11-11 since the break and 3-3 in the 6 series they've played so far. Today they go for the series win against Milwaukee with Jeff Suppan on the mound.

Chase-ing History? (And some early waiver talk!)

Tonight, the Cardinals look to end a shot at history.

Chase Utley is having an excellent year and is currently in the midst of a huge hitting streak.
Last night with a 2-for-5 day, he extended the streak to 33 games. This ties him at 17th on the list of longest consecutive hit streaks. He sits still an amazing 23 games behind DiMaggio, but for a more modest starting goal, it only puts him 5 games from tying teammate Jimmy Rollins, whose streak, from last season, was broken in the opening series of 2006 against, who else? The St. Louis Cardinals. It also only puts him 6 games away from tying Paul Moliter for the longest streak since Pete Rose's NL-record tying 44 in 1978.

So the Cardinals look to end their 2nd 30-game plus hit streak of the season tonight on ESPN.

More random trade information

In other news related to the Phillies, they are possibly still looking to dump a few big name players. In this Philadelphia Inquirer article, there is speculation that they could be willing to ship Jon Lieber, Pat Burrell and Mike Lieberthal, all likely to clear waivers because of their high salaries, in a waiver-wire deal. As it is still believed that the Cardinals need a bat and perhaps even a starting pitcher, Burrell and Lieber could be possibly targets for Walt Jocketty to target. Although personally, I could do without Burrell and his career .258 Batting Average.

Speculation in the article is that Lieberthal could be a good fit for Boston, who lost team captain Jason Varitek for most of the season after he underwent arthroscopic knee surgery.

Another article on ESPN by Jerry Crasnick reports on other players likely to clear waivers and be available. Shawn Green of Arizona is cited as someone the Cardinals had interest in and could acquire.

If nothing else, can Jocketty swallow his pride and call across the state to KC to inquire about Reggie Sanders?