The Cardinals look like a legitimate contender. It’s the middle of June and they’re only two and a half back from the NL leading Cubs. This team has worked hard to put themselves in a position to contend, but alas, after a rash of injuries, it looks as though destiny has something else in store for them.
I spent the entire offseason lambasting the new front office for their passive nature and for their failure to pick up an impact player. I’m not ashamed to admit that I completely underestimated their young prospects the same way everyone else did. Anyone that says they saw Ryan Ludwick and Todd Wellenyer morphing into All-Stars is lying. So maybe this cast of unknown journey-men and retreads has what it takes to keep this team afloat as they work to get everyone healthy. Who knows? It’s possible, but unfortunately, this time, I don’t think that they have what it takes.
With Pujols hitting the disabled list for what is expected to be three weeks, Ludwick and Rick Ankiel are going to have to carry the load. Yes, both of these men have vastly exceeded all expectations thus far, but without Pujols sandwiched between it’s going to be interesting to see if they can continue to produce like they have. Ankiel is already in the midst of a slump, where he’s hit .100 with 1 home run and 1 RBI over the last ten days, and without Pujols protecting him, Ludwick’s numbers are also likely to falter.
Even with how well this team has been hitting, the rotation has been their strength. Staying true to form, general manager John Mozeliak stocked the roster with castoffs and retreads, hoping that they would perform well enough to keep the team in contention until Chris Carpenter returned from Tommy John surgery. So far they’ve met that challenge by posting a collective 3.77 ERA, but with staff ace Adam Wainwright landing on the disabled list with a finger injury similar to Joel Zumaya’s it looks like that success will be coming to an abrupt end.
If that isn’t enough, Todd Wellenmyer, the owner of a 7-1 record and 2.93 ERA, is battling a shoulder strain, Joel Pinero just returned from a pulled groin, and Matt Clement, Brad Thompson, and Jason Isringhausen are all on minor league rehab assignments. Then there’s Mark Mulder who has been working hard to re-invent his delivery.
Even the mid-level guys can’t stay healthy. Tyler Johnson is out with a shoulder injury and Josh Kinney is recovering from an elbow injury. Kelvin Jimenez who occasionally fills in during times of need is out with a hand injury.
Due to these injuries the team has had to rush a few guys along, but, as we’ve seen, that hasn’t worked out too well either. Mike Parisi, considered to be among the teams elite prospects, came up for a pair of starts but was quickly hammered back down to the minors after giving up 21 runs in 22.3 innings. The team has recently called up Mitchell Boggs with hopes that he will be able to at least fill in some of the gaps created by the recent rash of injuries. If that fails, they’ll be forced to turn back to Anthony Reyes, who recorded a 5.27 ERA over nine games earlier this season.
It looks like things are going to be rough, but if they can hold it together for a little while and get everyone back they still might have a shot. I just wouldn’t bet on it.
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Is your website broken? What happened to the layout?
Chris, just a little experiment to see if this encourages more participation in the site. We get well over a 1,000 visitors daily, our ads get clicked a healthy amount of times, yet the commenting is lower than I’d like. So just trying something new out to see if we can boost things up in this area a little bit.
This also just makes this faster and easier for me. It takes a lot of work and coding each time I write a post. With the other layout things also seem like they always have to be so serious, there’s a lot of topics I’d like to cover, but sometimes there just isn’t enough to say about it to write a proper article. I feel like this gives me the freedom to post up a three paragraph post, or to just drop my thoughts on a game. I don’t know, we’ll see. I definitely like the way it looked before better, but this just seems more friendly and open. Like I said, 100 times already, we’ll see.
Kind of like the traditional Blog Layout.
Anyways, now that Soriano hit the disabled list do you think that the Cards are still in this?
Sean, it definitely makes a different. The problem is that the Cubs still have Aramis Ramirez, Derek Lee, Fokudome, and a few other weapons. What do the Cardinals have? As I said before, Ryan Ludwick is going to get pitched too differently without Albert behind him, and Ankiel is already struggling. It’s not good, plus the Cubs still ahve their staff ace, the Cardinals are without both Wainwright and Carpenter. Chicago has also proven that they are resilient enough to sustain without Soriano, earlier this year when he was out they went 9-6 without him.
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