Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Diamond Dust: Glaus' Glove and Pedro's Pain

Last night was probably an indication of what is to come for my beloved Cardinals. Kyle Lohse pitched five shutout innings taking a no-decision, as the Cards could manage only one run (on a Molina solo home run). For the games, the beleaguered pitching staff allowed zero earned runs. So, if the Cards have one and the pitching gives up zero "earned" runs how did they lose you ask? Let us go to the new "star" third baseman for the answer to your query. A Troy Glaus error in the eighth allowed two unearned runs to score. On Rolen's worst days over the past two season, when he could seemingly not hit the ball out of the infield, he always played a solid third base. Pair this error with his 0-4 at the dish and it is safe to say that this was not the best debut. I hated this acquisition, thus last night's game was particularly irritating. This team will be lucky if it scores 200 runs this season. I will just close my eyes and remember this. Also last night, the Marlins beat the Mets in dramatic fashion when Robert Andino (who?) hit a tenth inning walk-off home run, the first of his brief career. The story was Pedro's strained hamstring, which forced him to leave the game in the fourth after only 57 pitches. When he was out last season, I thought he seemed to have lost his edge and I will be curious to see how he responds. Other random thoughts from the season's first few days include Peavy and Johan starting their Cy Young duel in good order with an edge to JP after Round 1 and the guy I proclaimed to be the best closer in baseball, J.J. Putz blew a save opportunity on the season's second day. Granted it is early to get worried about these things, but what fun would the first week of the baseball season be if we couldn't say things like Jim Thome is on pace to hit 324 home runs and drive in 648 runs. Actually people that do this are annoying, the beginning of the season is plenty fun without such dumb projections...

1 comment:

Bill said...

That is hilarious that we both posted 6 minutes apart on the some of the same subjects! I'd like to say I feel bad for you but you won the World Series 1 1/2 years ago! Glaus is another great example of the breakdown of an HGH-taker. Johan looked very good, so has Peavy, Penny, and Chris Young. This might the NL's year. Then again, maybe not.