• Todd Wellemeyer might’ve missed his start Tuesday, but Mitchell Boggs’s results looked a lot like the Colonel’s average line this season:
  

  Pitcher	BF	IP	BB	SO	H	OBPA
  Wellemeyer (average start)	22	6	2	4	7	.391
  Boggs (8/11)	29	6	4	6	9	.448

• The Reds got away from their game plan to pitch Yadier Molina inside, and it cost them. With the exception of a first-pitch changeup that Molina tried to pull, Molina hit safely when the Reds left pitches out over the plate (curveballs and changeups, at that). In Monday’s game, they jammed him in on the hands with hard stuff.
• What was Jose Oquendo thinking when he sent the lumbering Molina from third base on a shallow fly ball in the fourth inning? Oquendo might’ve done some mental calculus after last night’s game. With one out in the first and Skip Schumaker on third, Matt Holliday hit a fly ball to medium left field. Cinco Cinco scored, but Gomes’s throw was on-line and made the play close. In Tuesday’s game, Schumaker’s fly wasn’t hit as far, and Oquendo has a considerably slower runner in Molina — how much less likely was it that Molina would score? Moreoever, the Cardinals have their 2-3-4 men due up and therefore less reason to gamble. Granted, Gomes isn’t known for his throwing prowess, but you’ve only got 27 outs; don’t waste them needlessly.
• Molina pulled a second boner in the sixth, getting thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double (again by Gomes). According to TLR in his post-game conference, YaMo heard 1B coach McKay yelling "Go, go!" when he actually said "No, no!" Perhaps the manager is covering for his catcher. But if not, isn’t that base-coaching 101? Anyone see the replay to tell whether McKay had his hands up?
• Jason Motte needs to work on his control in Memphis, where he won’t hurt the big club with his walks. He walked two of the six batters he faced Tuesday, one of whom scored the difference-making run. He now has a 1.75 K/BB ratio, which isn’t going to cut it in important middle-relief innings.
• Is "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy" really an appropriate song for the ballpark?
• Brendan Ryan was in the game all of three and a half innings, but he packed a lot of excitement in them. Not starting because of a hurt foot, he entered the game in a double switch in the sixth to an applauding crowd and proceeded to knock two singles and convert all plays in the field. But it was his fearless baserunning that entertained most: He stole second in the ninth to remove another double-play possibility with Schumaker, then scored from second on Rasmus’s infield hit-cum-error. If TLR doesn’t appreciate him, perhaps Whitey Herzog would’ve.
• When Dusty Baker brought in LOOGy Danny Herrera to face Schumaker with Ryan on first base and none out, Tony La Russa might’ve pinch hit with Khalil Greene. Schumaker was 0-for-5 against Herrera and, given his propensity to hit ground balls (he’s second in the majors at 60%) — especially, as a lefty, to the second baseman — Schumaker was a dupe for a rally-killing 4-6-3 DP.
• When Rick Ankiel pinch hit with a runner on second in the eighth inning, he was again foiled by a counter move to bring in a LOOGy (against whom he popped out). Ankiel’s chief benefit as a pinch hitter this year has been to get the opposing manager to burn a LOOGy (he has a putrid .166 GPA as a sub). It got us thinking about one difference between this year’s club and those of the glorious early aughts: no switch hitters off the bench. Those earlier Cardinal teams were able to counter LOOGy moves with guys like Scott Spiezio, Abe Nunez, Aaron Miles, Jose Vizcaino and even Roger Cedeno. With Ankiel, who can’t hit lefties, and Khalil Greene, who can’t hit righties, coming off the bench, the Cardinals should look for a switch-hitting pinch hitter. How about Luis Rodriguez, Greg Norton or Tony Clark, for starters?
• The line score said that the Cardinals had 15 hits. They should’ve had two fewer, but home-team-friendly scoring turned a couple of Reds’ errors into safeties. Third baseman Adam Rosales made a bad decision to back up on Matt Holliday’s chopper in the fifth, fielding cleanly but throwing too late to put out the hustling Holliday. Then in the eighth, Molina drilled a liner to right that Chris Dickerson ran down but couldn’t corral. True, Dickerson is lightning-fast, but with regular effort, it’s a single at worst.

This entry was posted by Pip on Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 1:31 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.