Quotebook: Cardinals 8, Phillies 4
Just to get through six, I kind of had to scratch and claw to get there. It definitely helps the bullpen out a little bit. Ryan and Skip up the middle, the last few games have been awesome. Skip has been playing his butt off. It helps, especially when you are not getting a lot of strikeouts.
In pitching six full innings, Hawksworth faced a career-high 28 batters. In addition to yielding three walks, the reason he didn’t pitch deeper than six innings was his team’s inability to convert balls in play into outs, as indicated by their .583 defensive-efficiency rate (or, depending on your point of view, the Phillies’ BABIP of .417). The accolades notwithstanding, Schumaker mishandled a couple of balls that might’ve led to additional outs.
I think our defense we have stepped it up to a different level. We played great defense in the first half but I think over the last two weeks you can see our defense. We are on our toes, helping the pitchers and making some great plays.
Team DER over last two weeks: .673.
Team DER previously: .696
To be sure, DER includes a lot of non-fielding noise, but it seems that the team’s improved defense over the last fortnight is illusory. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the team isn’t hustling or that that hustle won’t pay off in the long run.
I think there are guys in here who are motivated to have a very good second half. Part of it is getting a break to clear your mind and re-evaluate where you’re at. … I think there are a lot of guys in here who are really motivated to turn their season around. Whether it’s Craig or (Jon) Jay who you want to give some credit to, that’s fine, no doubt about it. But there’s a lot of (veterans) in here who want to turn their season around not only for themselves but because it’s going to better the team. We are such a better team than we showed in the first half.
Amid a handful of well-established stars, the team clearly has some players who are still hungry. As we wrote in our Trade Deadline Primer, Schumaker and Yadier Molina are two such players poised to regress to their normal selves. Schumaker’s BABIP has increased from unseemly low levels, due in large measure to his team-leading line-drive rate. Molina, whose BABIP is still a low .248 (career: .278) and who has a better LD% than Pujols, should follow. And Brendan Ryan is at a critical point in his career, on both sides of the ball.
But even in the case of the stars, players have significant motivators: Holliday, who lacks no job security, wants to prove worthy of his fat contract. Pujols himself, by dragging his feet on a contract extension, is gambling that his skills won’t markedly degrade and, perhaps ironically, needs to prove that he’s still the best player in baseball. And Chris Carpenter, whether because he is "a competitor" or simply proud, appears dissatisfied with his performance. Perhaps all of these factors will coelesce into a firy team dynamic throughout the second "half" of the season.
Wasn’t my best. This win is all about the guys. The lineup. The defense. It was a lot of fun to see those guys swing it.
– Hawksworth
Kudos to Hawksworth for his endurance on the field as wisdom off it. Whereas lately he had exhibited more power pitching, his performance Monday was more typical of what we might expect from him as a starter: A lot of ground balls in play (54%) and unimpressive K/BB and K/9 rates (0.33 and 1.50, respectively).
Would that Hawksworth’s view on winning were shared by others. If you’re scoring at home, or at least checking Fangraphs, you’ll note that Hawksworth — "the winning pitcher" — contributed a net negative WPA of -.170. Of course, that’s not exclusively his responsibility, but it certainly puts the idea of attributing "wins" to pitchers into perspective, doesn’t it? For the record, Albert Pujols led all players with a +.282 WPA, followed closely by Jon Jay at +.237. 
When he was working out, he dropped a (weight) plate on his toe. They’re saying it may not be any longer than his ankle. I don’t really know except now he has that to deal with as well.
– Tony La Russa on David Freese’s latest injury
Let’s hope that Freese, who has a history of making bad decisions, didn’t simply forget to use a safety clamp on the end of his weight bar. At any rate, his eventual return will only benefit the team, whose September may look a little like that in 2006, when several key players returned from injury to buoy the team’s playoff roster.
Winning is the big cure-all
A veteran of 13 seasons and 1661 games, Winn should know, but not necessarily through personal experience: His teams’ won-loss record over the years is 752-909, a miserable .453 winning percentage. Here’s hoping the club’s fourth outfielder enjoys the salutary experience of a division title this year.