The Cardinals...

[BU_EMT128]

Remember when that lineup was supposed to be a powerful, run producing offense?

Good thing it is a long season, they have to break out of the funk eventually.

[Bradleyguy10]

The Cardinals...



suck

[Future Walk-On]

remember when Hal McRae was the hitting coach? All the sudden the whole team strikes the shit out and we suck.

Our pitchers are throwing gems and we score 1 to 2 runs a game....

we suck.

[Chico]

Not a Cards fan, but stayed awake for the end of the game last night. Makes the 7:00 tee time come early. Such fickle fans. At least Cub fans are used to it.

[DeltaBrave03]

Baseball's a game of averages. Every player has ups and downs we just have all but Freese in a down right now. The hits are there most of the time they just aren't strung together. As long as our pitching keeps like we'll be just fine when our hitting comes back.

[Future Walk-On]

Baseball's a game of averages. Every player has ups and downs we just have all but Freese in a down right now. The hits are there most of the time they just aren't strung together. As long as our pitching keeps like we'll be just fine when our hitting comes back.

Yeah I am not worried...everyone should know that this team is good and this is only one month. It needs to get better soon.....

Freese for NL rookie of year?
Gold glove?

[TNel]

I always thought the hiring of the PED king was way over-hyped. Players travelling to the west coast prior to spring training for his tutelage, Tony's pronouncements, video of him in the dugout taking notes during games, etc. Doubt that he has had much effect on established hitters like Pujols and Holliday, but wonder about some of the younger players. Shoemaker and Ryan, especially, have looked pathetic at the plate. Huge dropoff from last season. And they were two of the first to make the pilgrimage out west. Just a hunch.

[Future Walk-On]

The Cardinals haven't been a power team the last few years....and they never struck out much.

McGuire shows up...........what happens.....(at least at the beginning of the year) the cardinals lead the league in homeruns and were top 3 in strikeouts....correlation?

Rasmus strikes out every other at bat and Pujols is going to eclipse his K total from last year by the break.

[Future Walk-On]

Albert has 25 strikeouts through 45 games.

From 2002-2009 he was low 50's to mid 60's in K's for the whole year....he is on pace to have around 90 and could even surpass his rookie year total!

Rasmus and Ludwick are in the top 12 in the League right now!

[houstontxbrave]

Albert has 25 strikeouts through 45 games.

From 2002-2009 he was low 50's to mid 60's in K's for the whole year....he is on pace to have around 90 and could even surpass his rookie year total!

Rasmus and Ludwick are in the top 12 in the League right now!

You are 100% correct. Fundementals, including patience at the plate, swinging at strikes and putting the ball in play are not apparently real high on the list of things to do for this Cardinals team.

Rasmus Ludwick and Holiday have no clue and Pujols he has zero power, watching him I think he is injured he just does not look the same as he did in April.

They really are lucky that they play in the NL Central.

[BuB]

I always thought the hiring of the PED king was way over-hyped. Players travelling to the west coast prior to spring training for his tutelage, Tony's pronouncements, video of him in the dugout taking notes during games, etc. Doubt that he has had much effect on established hitters like Pujols and Holliday, but wonder about some of the younger players. Shoemaker and Ryan, especially, have looked pathetic at the plate. Huge dropoff from last season. And they were two of the first to make the pilgrimage out west. Just a hunch.

I agree. Definitely over-hyped. And because of all this early work before Spring Training and extra work during Spring Training it is time to shine the light on this new hitting coach. His philosophies and hitting points have not worked to date. McGwire has never been a coach at any level. He did not work with hitters in the minor leagues and did not learn which of his hitting points work with hitters and which ones don't. He is learning on the go at the highest level of baseball.

Tony L hired his friend who had no experience. Right now this looks like a questionable hire. If this fire continues to get hotter we will see how long Tony L remains loyal. He will either fire MM, blame the hitters for not adjusting, or say neither are to blame because of injuries. McGwire had considerable success as a power hitter but was not considered a good hitter. Because of PED's all his numbers were greatly inflated. I am not suprised at all that the hitters have struggled. Just pi$$ed.

[DeltaBrave03]

How much impact do you really believe hitting coaches have? Very little, they study pitchers, and watch for gliches in hitter's swings. As far as patience goes, I think the cardinals are taking more walks than I remember them having in a long time. And as far as Mac's affect on Shumaker, he worked with him before last season and he hit .300 last year. I guarantee you Mac has no affect on Pujols if anything he's learning from Pujols. When it comes to qualifications, the Rockies we're all but ready to off him the position two years ago before Mac decided two days prior to flying to Colorado that he wasn't ready to get back into baseball so I'd say other teams and managers besides TLR felt he was qualified for the position.

[real fan]

Anybody that believes the hitting coach has little impact does not understand the game, Terry Pendleton has been one of the worse hitting coaches for Atlanta that I can remember, McGuire was a long ball hitter that struck out a lot, Don Baylor is one of the best hitting coaches around and the team he coaches always hit for good team averages, just because you played does not qualify you to coach or manage, too many hitting coaches teach the way they did things and you cannot take away the things that made a player successful in making it to the big leagues.

[Bradleyguy10]

Not a Cards fan, but stayed awake for the end of the game last night. Makes the 7:00 tee time come early. Such fickle fans. At least Cub fans are used to it.

Fickle???

Go back to last season and take a look at the Cardinals hitting since the all-star break. This is not a knee jerk reaction..it's almost been an entire season now with Holliday and Pujols and those two together seem to make each other as well as others around them worse....

I would not be entirely opposed to trading Albert for two young studs that will fill some holes. I hate to think it and I hope I'm wrong but it looks like baseball's superman has had his injuries finally catch up to him....shouldn't have used bandaid solutions for everything.

read on:

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/columnists.nsf/berniemiklasz/story/F882FC17BD6D9C838625772C00110C89?OpenDocument

here's the important stuff:

"Pujols is more of a mystery. The greatest hitter of his generation is batting .267 and slugging .400 this month. Pujols has one homer in his last 92 at-bats. He has one homer at Busch Stadium this season, that coming during the home opener April 12. Pujols has one homer in 78 Busch at-bats this season. Taking it back to late 2009, Pujols has one homer in his last 131 at-bats at home.

But this isn't just a Busch thing. Since Sept. 11, Pujols has eight homers in 240 at-bats, or one for every 30 ABs. His slugging percentage since last July 18 is .551, which is pretty good, but it just isn't Pujols. Before last July 18, Pujols' career slugging percentage was .631. So we've seen an 80-point drop in his slugging and a fairly dramatic decrease in his home run ratio."

"During Friday night's broadcast on Fox Sports Midwest, Cardinals icon Bob Gibson was asked to analyze Pujols' recent downturn. Gibson opined that Pujols was "pressing" and chasing too many pitches out of the strike zone. Gibby said that if he pitched to Pujols, he wouldn't throw Albert a strike.

But Pujols denies that he's expanded his strike zone, even though data at FanGraphs.com show that 30 percent of his swings this season have come on pitches out of the strike zone.

'I don't know what you're talking about,' Pujols said. 'I don't expand my (zone). Because we have nine guys in our lineup and I'm one of those nine guys. We pick each other up. I think we have too good a lineup for me to expand the strike zone. Yes, sometimes you don't feel comfortable when you don't see the ball, so you swing at a bad pitch here and there. But that doesn't mean you're expanding the strike zone.'

Apparently Gibson and the facts are wrong."

[Future Walk-On]

Anybody that believes the hitting coach has little impact does not understand the game, Terry Pendleton has been one of the worse hitting coaches for Atlanta that I can remember, McGuire was a long ball hitter that struck out a lot, Don Baylor is one of the best hitting coaches around and the team he coaches always hit for good team averages, just because you played does not qualify you to coach or manage, too many hitting coaches teach the way they did things and you cannot take away the things that made a player successful in making it to the big leagues.

OT - is that one whole sentence? lol