• Perhaps it’s time to shut Mulder down for the season, for his benefit, and the team’s.
• Take heart, Cardinal fans: Tim Hudson hasn’t done much better this season (Billy Beane strikes again!).
• Granted, at the time of an 8-1 deficit, this criticism is a bit like trying to bail water from the Titanic, but Preston Wilson needs to be jumping for Willingham’s home run off the top of the wall in the 8th. He may’ve simply misjudged it, but it’s either a) hit well enough that it’s going over or b) going to hit off the wall, which is only eight feet high; try to make a play. Wilson’s non-play was emblematic of how the team checked out during the blowout loss, and how tough it must be to keep focused when your starter leaves you down 5-1 after two innings.
• Whose home run was longer, Uggla’s or Ryan Howard’s on Monday?
• By our count, on every double play that the Cardinals hit into, not one single runner slid into second. Uh, Ronnie Belliard, this isn’t spring training nor do you hit or field like Keith Hernandez — you need to at least hit the ground on those.
  Ditto Gary Bennett, who veered off about halfway down the line in the 6th, Belliard in the 8th and Bennett again in the 9th. Comon, guys, at least look like you’re trying. (For the record, So Taguchi was hustling all the way.)
• Juan Encarnacion has got to play Hanley Ramirez’s triple off the wall better. Han-Ram is fast, but that should’ve been a standup double, or at least drawn a play at third. Whether it was vapor lock or apathy, Encarnacion has to know that what separates a mere check-earner from a winning ballplayer is giving it 100% all the time — not just occasionally (see Sunday’s catches). Sorry, Bernie, you’re wrong on this one.
• Signs that the team isn’t as good as it was earlier in the season: Whereas they pounded Olsen for seven runs on six hits in 3 2/3 innings back on May 7, last night the 22-year-old lefty punched out the Cardinals like he was Randy Messenger and the Cardinals were, uh, him.
• September means it’s time to have a pitching tryout: Wainwright, Reyes, Hancock, Sosa, everyone. Or perhaps LaRuncan should try our 10-man rotation idea.
• While much of Cardinal fans’ ire has been directed at ownership, it’s really the players who haven’t lived up to reasonable expectations. Let’s look at a few players, along with BPro’s preseason VORP projections and actual to-date numbers (granted, the season’s only 80% over, so these guys have some time to make up the difference):
  

  VORP	Projected	Actual-to-date	Diff
  Edmonds	54.3	20.6	-33.7
  Mulder	21.1	-11.3	-32.4
  Marquis	13.4	-1.5	-14.9
  Suppan	20.8	11.7	-9.1
  Bigbie	6.9	-1.1	-8.0
  Ponson	9.6	3.5	-6.1
  Rincon	3.6	-1.8	-5.4
  Thompson	7.9	6.0	-1.9

  Whether because of injuries, misuse or simply underachievement, several of the team’s key players simply haven’t come through this year. The good news — for the team, anyway — is that none of the top four biggest disappointments is signed for next season.

This entry was posted by Pip on Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 at 10:38 am and is filed under analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.