DG’s 10@10: Familiar Face, and Now a Familiar Race
HOUSTON — This past weekend it was a familiar face that fed the St. Louis Cardinals their first loss of the second half, and this week it’s a familiar race that confronts them in their first road series of the second half.
The Cardinals arrive in Houston to find an Astros team unexpectedly and inexplicably still in the race, sitting four games back of the division-leading Cardinals and certainly buoyed by the second-half surges of seasons past. Houston is 24-23 at home this season, but we’ve seen in seasons before how Houston — led mostly by ace Roy Oswalt — gets its second-stage ignition after the All-Star break.
And that is where the 10@10 begins …
1. Hall of Famer Rick Hummel made the point this weekend in The Post-Dispatch that when it comes to the Cardinals and a division-title race, it always seems to be with the Astros. The Cardinals and Houston have been 1-2 in the division five times since 2001, Hummel writes, and the Chicago Cubs-Cardinals haven’t been 1-2 in the division since the 1940s. A big part of the recent 1-2 punch is the Astros second-half performance. Houston has averaged 42 wins in the second-half in the past five seasons, and a good bit of that has to do with Oswalt’s 67-20 second-half record with a 2.89 ERA in his career after the break. This three-game series climaxes with a doozy, pitting Oswalt against Cardinals’ ace Chris Carpenter on Wednesday.
2. While none of the deals match the cachet magnitude of the one the Cardinals used to land Mark Mulder back before 2005, since the end of last year the Cardinals have packaged several prospects in trades for Khalil Greene, Blaine Boyer and Mark DeRosa. With the pitcher Dan Haren has become in mind (see Saturday which plunged his ERA down to 1.96, the only starter in baseball with a sub-2.00 ERA), today’s poll asks you who of the recently dealt players will go on to have the better production in a few years.
Loading …3. Trade bait Roy Halladay threw the 44th complete game of his career Sunday in Toronto, and his gem against Boston is already being played as possibly his last home start for the Blue Jays. But here’s the number that stands out — and is Cardinals-related — from the start. Halladay’s 39 complete games since 2003 are 13 more than any other pitcher in baseball. The next closest is CC Sabathia with 26, and there with 16 complete games, the fourth-most in baseball since 2003, is a certain lefty who hasn’t pitched much since 2006 … Mark Mulder.
4. A quick tale of text messaging. As mentioned in Sunday’s paper, Adam Wainwright and Haren are, in Wainwright’s words “text-messaging buddies”. Wainwright said during the last week he received a message from Haren about their start opposite each other on Saturday. That’s mentioned in the link. What accompanied that txt was Haren’s claim that he had a “slider-speed bat.” Wainwright’s first pitch to Haren was a slider just to check his honest. Haren fouled it off. “I guess it was telling the truth,” Wainwright.
5. What will Albert Pujols do at Minute Maid Park with no Brandon Backe to cheese-off? There won’t be any squabbles to make batting practice more entertaining around here, to be sure. Backe was released by the Astros a few weeks ago — he could need surgery before he’s able to land a job as a free agent — and he leaves the Cardinals’ rival having held the Cardinals first baseman to 3-for-11, with all three being home runs. Here is how Pujols has fared in his career against the three Astros pitcher scheduled to start this week, including the Astros two best pitchers in the final two games:
vs. Brian Moehler (Monday) … 9-for-15, 3 HR, 1 K … .600/.647/1.333
vs. Wandy Rodriguez (Tuesday) … 3-for-20, 0 HR, 1 K … .150/.346/.150
vs. Roy Oswalt (Wednesday) … 23-for-73, 5 HR, 5 K … .315/.367/.589
6. United earlier this season by the expediency of their victories, Joel Pineiro and Milwaukee starter Yovani Gallardo share a new statistical distinction today after Pineiro drove in all of the team’s runs in the Cardinals’ 2-0 victory Sunday. Mr. Sinker is the second pitcher in the last three seasons to drive in all of his team’s runs in a game he also won, joining Gallardo who won a 1-0 game with his home run on April 29 of this season. It’s been a little longer since a Cardinal pitcher did it however. According to Elias, Pineiro is the first Cardinals pitcher to drive in all of the runs in a win since Ray Sadecki did in a 3-1 victory on August 6, 1961. All of the runs Sadecki drove in scored on his bases-clearing double in the second inning Sportsman’s Park.
7. FARMNIK REPORT: Righthander Eric Fornataro allowed one hit in his seven scoreless innings, leading Batavia to a 1-0 victory. He didn’t walk a batter, and he only struck out one. … Khalil Greene went 1-for-6 with a home run in Class AA Springfield’s extra-inning’s victory. Tyler Henley also had a homer in the game, and Henley drove in the winning run with a single in the 12th inning. … Allen Craig, the forgotten bat in some ways, homered twice as he went 2-for-4 with four RBIs in Memphis’ 5-3 victory. Craig started in left field — clearly a position of some intrigue. … Matthew Adams, pride of Slippery Rock University, went 3-for-5 and drove in a run in Johnson City’s 6-0 victory. Adams is batting .400 through the first 80 at-bats of his season. He has a .400/.444/.638 line and he’s driven in 21 RBIs in his 22 games for the JC Cards. Reynier Gonzalez struck out nine, walked one and allowed one hit in his five innings of the shutout.
8. Spoke with Texas third baseman Michael Young about his teammate Ian Kinsler before the All-Star break, and he said his teammate was never approached about being an All-Star this year, not even when the AL scrambled to fill a few spots (Carlos Pena, Chone Figgins ...). Kinsler is certainly the AL’s biggest All-Star snub and is in the discussion for the MLB top snub. On Sunday, the former Mizzou All-American added to the season he’s having with a leadoff homer and a walk-off homer. Kinsler became the third player since the advent of division play (1969) to hit bookend homers. The previous two were Toronto’s Reed Johnson in 2003 and Darin Erstad in 2000. Kinsler has set a new career high with 22 home runs.
9. Another shot fired from the NL Central. On Sunday, the Milwaukee Brewers made a move to address their leadoff and second base situation. They acquired Felipe Lopez, the switch-hitting infielder who revived his 2008 (his career?) while with the Cardinals last season. Be wary. As Lopez said when he arrived as a Cardinal from Washington last season, he plays better when he’s “playing for a winner, because I’m more interested.” In the standings, Lopez just gained eight wins in the standings. … Jason Marquis is the first Colorado Rockies pitcher to lead the league in wins any day later than the FIRST DAY of the season. He has 12 wins. … And two guys mentioned earlier: Outfielder Brian Barton is hitting .256 and slugging .392 for Atlanta’s Triple-A affiliate. Blaine Boyer is with Arizona, though he did not appear in this past weekend’s series.
10. Today is the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the moon — and tomorrow is the 34th anniversary of something far more mundane, but enough about that — and any anniversary that gets Tom Wolfe to put fingers to keyboard is instantly a better anniversary. The author of The Right Stuff (and The New Journalism and The Bonfire of the Vanities and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test and a super-charged, verb-addled punctuation heee-rooooo!!! of mine) had an editorial in The New York Times about the space program after the moon. But as for baseball on this anniversary: The Cardinals did not play on July 20, 1969 (rainout vs. Pittsburgh?), and here is how they have fared on the lunar-landing anniversaries …
- July 20, 1979 … Cincinnati’s Tom Seaver throws a 1-K shutout, 3-0, against Cardinals.
- July 20, 1989 … Terry Pendleton goes 4-for-5 in 7-1 victory against San Diego.
- July 20, 1999 … Brad Radke pitches Twins to 4-2 win in interleague visit to Busch II.
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Derrick Goold said he was going to Mizzou for capital-J journalism, but after growing up in the Time Zone Baseball Forgot he was really drawn to MU sitting between two major-league cities. Goold joined the Post-Dispatch in 2001 after working for The Times-Picayune and Rocky Mountain News, covering sports from LSU to NHL and every level of baseball in between. 
Try refreshing because there was lost-in-translation moment from one draft of today’s 10@10 to what should have been the final draft. Thanks. — dg.
DG, Do the Cards really feel Wallace will be able to play 3rd up here? I’m wondering why we haven’t had him in LF some with the aquisition of DeRosa.
You know as much as Id like to see Roy Halladay as a Cardinal. Heck it would be great to have another starter to put in and have a dominant five man…
I just think we need another bat instead. The one guy im wondering about is Adam Dunn. Everyone wants guys like Matt Holliday, but why not go for Dunn. Yes he strikes out a ton, but he hits 40 homers a year and drives in around 100 all the time… and he doesnt have to deal with the stigma of having been a Coors field product.
It goes beyond their believe that the can play third at the major-league level … they are invested in the idea that he can play third at the major-league level. To borrow the poker lingo of my colleague they are all-in on the notion.
Its funny you mentioned “Ray Sadecki” as I have often said this season has alot of the flavor the “60’s” teams had and even more so of the “64″ team. Good pitching, a few good hitters, and a few good fielders, and it had some of the same problems of “who plays left field” and they went with a current radio announcer, Shannon. And if memory serves me right they acquired a slick stealing fellow in “64″,… wonder if MO can find that kind of trade this year. And with the “boo birds” finally coming out for Duncan on Sunday it may be time for him to say good bye to St. Louis.
I was on the fence with Derosa, but tis the season of trade, and the FO keeps telling us that “were in 1st and all is fine”. Hummel getting people as worried about Houston. So Mr DG,… with all the excitment of a race to the wire going on,… who would you trade for, and Halla or Holli are not allowed, and it has to have that grand type “64″ flair of Lou Brock ring to it?
Why are the Cardinals not looking at Ben Sheets. I know he has injury history, but should be able to contribute quite a bit more in the second half than Wellemeyer and also should be relatively inexpensive.
Alittle note for all those slamming Duncan, (I do as well) it really isn’t all his fault. I had the same type surgery he had and it took 16-18 months to get back to right, had to re-adjust my entire golf swing for it, so I can imagine at that level of play it is even more difficult. Whatever the doctors told him was prolly the same line of crap they told me, so it’s gonna take awhile and he needs to be in AAA to recover his swing.
JohnnyD: Ben sheets had surgery. He’s out until next year.
JamesK,
I think I understand the question, though I don’t see a Lou Brock out there. Adam Dunn may make the most sense with your parameters.
dg
That just doesn’t make sense DG. We ought to be trying to find a way to get his bat in the lineup without being worried that we look foolish for drafting a 1B with Albert here. It’s funny how it works, last year we thought the OF was cramped, even in the minors. This year except for Jones we haven’t gotten much from any of our options. It seems we believe that Freese is an option at 3B also. Btw … he played in his first rehab game yesterday on one of the rookie league teams going 1-2.