St.louis

With bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth inning and two outs, Daniel Descalso struck out swinging in a tie game. (more…)

With Jaime Garcia’s shoulder pushing him onto the disabled list, the St. Louis Cardinals do not have a starting pitcher for their series finale in San Diego on Wednesday night, May 22. With its top-ranked farm system strongest in pitching in and close to the majors, the problem is located in the organization’s most optimal area to try to address. While there are various options potentially available to the Cardinals, none is completely obvious. Let’s consider them. Jake Westbrook. The veteran right-hander is on the disabled list with right elbow problems that have required two injections to try to calm down. Even if his mandatory 15 days on the DL had passed by Wednesday, which they will not, Westbrook has not begun to throw again, so would not be ready. The bigger question with Westbrook is how long he will remain out – and therefore how long John Gast would be needed to replace him instead of potentially covering for Garcia in the rotation. Chris Carpenter. When the starting five seemed in such good shape just a few days ago, there seemed no place for the warrior to fit. Still, Carpenter has been preparing for his return as a starter. In bullpens, his pitch counts have been as high as 70, but his next checkpoint is not until the Cardinals return to St. Louis on May 28. On the 60-day disabled list since March 22, my calculations have Carp becoming eligible for activation on May 22. Hmmm. Still, without any rehab action, an accelerated move with the 38-year-old would seem to be high risk. No one has even suggested this, to my knowledge. Yet because it does not seem impossible and it is Carpenter we are talking about, I will include it among the options. Michael Wacha. Putting aside Carpenter, the talk of major league spring training camp is perhaps the sentimental favorite to step in for Garcia. The tall right-hander has strong basic numbers with a 4-0 record and a 1.89 ERA in his first eight Triple-A starts. The 21-year-old has improved after yielding four of his 10 earned runs in his first two outings, including two of five home runs. Digging a bit deeper, though, provides potential clues to why Carlos Martinez, Seth Maness and Gast were selected to be elevated to the majors ahead of him. There are those five long balls and a so-so 32:14 strikeout to walk ratio in 47 2/3 innings. His FIP of 4.10 summarizes a view that the basic nums are not fully indicative and that more seasoning was required. In addition, Wacha is not yet on the 40-man roster. It may be too early to move Garcia to the 60-day DL to create an opening. This could be addressed by removal of another, but it would seem to me that the Cardinals would prefer to make the Wacha moves if a longer-term starting need is presented (see Westbrook uncertainty above). Seth Maness. The good-luck charm as a reliever has logged all three St. Louis bullpen wins this season. Having carried a full starter’s workload until recently, including four Triple-A starts, Maness would seem to be the most likely interim rotation replacement, in my opinion. The right-hander most recently tossed 1 2/3 frames of scoreless ball on Friday night, getting a hold against the Brewers. The return of reliever Mitchell Boggs from Memphis in the corresponding roster move with Garcia’s placement on the DL is a potential indicator that Wednesday’s starter might come from the current St. Louis pen. Even if not, it at least gives the club another relief arm during the impending three games. Carlos Martinez. Speaking of starters currently among the relievers, we have hard-throwing Carlos Martinez. While holding his own in the majors, Martinez had a late start this season due to a visa problem. His workload with St. Louis has been relatively sparse and he pitched in relief Saturday night. Martinez could be a factor, but there seems risk in starting the 21-year-old in the majors now. Trevor Rosenthal. After some bumpy outings early on, Rosenthal has been the most reliable set-up man on the

The Rams are on a verge of having a breakout season at making some unexpected noise in the NFL. However, in order for the Rams to succeed there are some players that need to step up on both sides of the ball. This will be the first of two segments and this part will be focused on players on offense that need to step up in order for the Rams to have success this season. Roger Saffold Roger Saffold is entering the last year of his rookie contract this season. It has been rumored that Saffold is not pleased with the signing of Jake Long who will be taking over at left tackle. The Rams have the best offensive line that they have had in years, and it is important that Saffold play well to help keep Sam Bradford upright. Saffold also needs to prove that he can stay healthy. After starting every game his rookie season, Saffold played nine games in 2011 and ten games last season. A good offensive line has continuity, and if Saffold is on and off the field due to injury, that continuity would be lost. Saffold is also entering the last year of his contract, therefore if he wants to make a lot of money next season, he needs to perform well. Saffold has been a solid player so far in his career. Last season Saffold only had eight penalties for 50 yards. He had four false starts and two holding penalties. Saffold also only gave up 2.5 sacks last season for a loss of 5.5 yards total. Sam Bradford This one is pretty obvious. In order for the Rams to succeed, Bradford needs to play on top of his game. With the departure of Steven Jackson, this is now Sam Bradford’s team, and the team will only go as far as Sam Bradford takes them. Sam Bradford doesn’t necessarily have to throw for 4,000+ yards and 30TD, even though that would be nice, but Sam does need to come up big in big moments and be the leader of this team. There were too many times last season when the offense couldn’t generate anything for a sustainable amount of time, the offense needs to help out the defense and sustain longer drives and come up with points. Sam Bradford now has decent weapons in Givens, Austin, Cook, and Quick, it is time that Bradford produces. Bradford may just be the quarterback with the most pressure this season. Brian Quick Brian Quick is a third player that needs to step up this season. The Rams lost two of their best receivers last season in Amendola and Gibson. The Rams front office has put a lot of faith in Givens and Quick to carry the load at wide receiver. Quick needs to prove that he has developed, and can be the Rams number two or maybe even number one receiver. Everybody knows Quick has the capability of doing something special and he can make plays, it is time for Quick to go out and prove it. Honorable Mentions  Greg Zurlein is more special teams than offense, but he scores points, so we’ll put him in the offense category. Zurlein  needs to step up this season.He had a good rookie season going 23/31 and making seven 50+ yard field goals. However, while Zurlein went 14/17 on turf, he went 8/14  on grass/outdoor stadiums. The Rams play a lot of close games, and they are bound to play a lot of close ones this season. Zurlein could play a major key in the Rams success. Tavon Austin also needs to play well. This is putting a lot on a rookie, but the Rams have been searching for a weapon for a long time, and they see Austin as being that. The Rams lost Danny Amendola in free agency, and although Amendola was hurt a lot, the Rams had a better record with him on the field. Austin needs to prove his critics wrong and prove his size is a non issue and be Sam’s security blanket underneath. Last but not least, Jared Cook needs to play well. Cook is another weapon the Rams went to get. Cook needs to be a Rob Gronkowski/ Aaron Hernandez for the Rams. Cook has to make plays down the field for the Rams in order to open things up for Tavon Austin. Cook could play a major role in the Rams success this season. Daryl Richardson/Isa

I'm watching Edward Mujica in the 9th inning. He's recorded two outs and allowed a single that should have been an out had Allen Craig not been so concerned that fist base was going to walk off of its own accord. I was not particularly enamored of Mujica when the Cardinals acquired him from the Marlins. A control artist with solid strikeout rates, he seemed a good solution for the problem of the 7th inning that had been particularly plaguing in 2012. But a solution to the particularly plaguing 9th inning for the Cardinals in 2013? That seems to be a bit more of a stretch. And yet, here we are. I'm inclined to quote poet-philosopher Ryan Theriot when he said, "It is what it is." But it isn't what it was. More specifically, Edward Mujica is having a different season then he's had previously and there appears to be a measurable change in approach. Take a look at pitch selection from 2012 compared to 2013: 2012 2013 Fastball 45.3% 35.4% Slider 9.5% 0.5% Split Finger 45.2% 64.2% Mujica has ditched the slider entirely and scaled back. For all intents and purposes, he's doubled down on the split finger and it has paid off. Mujica has seen his strikeout rate tick up and is also benefiting from even better than usual control. To wit: 2012 2013 Strikeout% 18.2% 26.7% Walk% 4.7% 1.7% There's good reason to wonder if these are sustainable rates. It would be the best strikeout rate of his career (equaled in 2010 with the Padres) and the lowest walk rate since he broke into the majors in 2006. Mujica's stuff, especially given the fireballers currently in the pen like Trevor Rosenthal and Carlos Martinez, is unlikely to become known as a "stuff" guy. His fastball sits in the low nineties (averaging around 92mph) and, despite the impressive results of his split finger, he lacks the eyeball popping breaking ball like an Adam Wainwright curve or a Mitchell Boggs slider. But it would be a mistake to conflate Mujica with the most recent Cardinals closer by default, Ryan Franklin. In a similar way, Franklin earned the role after others failed their way out of it. He was reliable in the sense that you knew what you were getting from Franklin even if what you were getting wasn't very good. Franklin was like a microwaved salmon patty from the store: arguably nutritious, hinting at flavor and suffering from a systemic case of freezer burn. And yet, still filling. Franklin never eclipsed a 20% strikeout rate. His best walk rate was twice what Edward Mujica's current walk rate is. The question of sustainability is a prudent one to keep asking when a reliever overperforms expectations in a small sample size but Mujica's process looks different than in past and his results look better. This isn't smoke and mirrors. There's legitimate fire in the Edward Mujica as closer role. * * * You twist your ankle doing your typical day job activities one day. Your options are to take some time off and try to rest it or to have surgery. Tests indicate that there appears to be a significant problem to your foot but doctors reasonably caution you that tests of this nature (e.g. MRIs) are not full proof. Rather than undergo surgery, which has a host of inherent risks unrelated to your specific injury, you opt for rest and rehab. Things go reasonably well until they ... well, stop going reasonably well. There's going to be a lot of second guessing of bot Jaime Garcia and the St. Louis Cardinals in the wake of his trip to the DL and what sounds an awful lot like portents of season ending surgery. The Cardinals earned some of this with past incidents involving Mark Mulder and Scott Rolen. The reality is more nuanced than any one event and a conservative approach to injuries is warranted in general. It's worth noting that Jaime Garcia was really fucking good over the last few weeks. He had a 3.69 FIP with a 63% groundball rate. Perhaps a more interesting question about Jaime Garcia is

The system goes 2-2 W-L overall. A rarity that you'll find southpaws starting in each game on each level on one night the system had just that. Two of the southpaws Nick Addition from Memphis and Tim Cooney from Springfield had impressive starts and racking up the strikeouts. Memphis 3, Tacoma 4 Memphis is still without Kolten Wong and Oscar Taveras. Brock Peterson only hit was a double. Jamie Romak was 1-2 with 2 walks. Justin Christian the minor league vet was 1-2 with an RBI double and also had base on base. Vance Albitz made up most of Memphis's offense by going 2-4 with 2 RBI's and a double. Nick Addition pitched 6 solid innings allowing 4 hits on 3 earned runs, walked 1, and struck out 9 batters. Marc Rzepczynski pitched a scoreless inning but struggled finding his control as he walked 3 batters. Sam Freeman gave up 3 hits on 1 earned run in an inning of work. Springfield 7, Arkansas 0 *Mike O'Neill has two major abilities getting on base at a superior rate and consistently putting the ball in play using the entire field as did by going 4-5 with a triple, double, and 2 singles. Using the entire field is one of O'Neill biggest assets. *James Ramsey was hitless but walked twice. *Ruben Gotay had a 3-hit game walked once. *Chris Swauger was 3-5 with an RBI. *Xavier Scruggs continues to mash at Springfield just begging to get promotion to Memphis. He went 2-4 with a home run and 5 RBI's. Scruggs now has a slash line of .283/.414/.655 and has slugged 12 home runs with 33 RBI's in only 36 games. *Tim Cooney had the most impressive night as he pitched 6 shutout innings giving up 5 hits only walking 1 and striking out 7 batters. Nice to see Cooney having immediate success at Springfield. Palm Beach 2, Jupiter 5 *Switch hitter Collin Walsh was 1-2 with 2 walks with a stolen base his 4th of the season. Walsh's power may have died in the FSL but at least he's still showing patience at the plate. As he's kept an excellent walk rate of 12.2% but his strikeouts are up by nearly 5 points from last year which suggest he's having a tough time adjusting to facing more advanced pitching. *Stephen Piscotty singled his only knock. *Danny Stienstra continues to be productive for Palm Beach as he hit an RBI single. *Tyler Melling pitched 5 scoreless innings giving up 3 hits, walked 1, and struck out 5 Peoria 7, Clinton 10 Peoria's bullpen imploded in the top of the 9th giving up 5 runs. *Breyvic Valera was a perfect 4-4 with an RBI and single. Nice to see Valera starting to hit again. People got to remember he led the NY-Penn-League in total hits last year. *Ildemaro Vargas was 3-5 with a double. *Patrick Wisdom was 1-5 with an RBI triple. *Carson Kelly continues to hold his own by singling twice. *Kyle Helisiek gave up 11 hits on 5 unearned, 3 earned in 6 innings pitched. *Sam Tuivailala was shelled allowing only 1 hit but gave up 5 unearned runs 4 of them were earned.

With the bases loaded following two walks Image from Brooksbaseball.net

David Freese hit a grand slam on Friday night as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Brewers 7-6. (more…)

LOS ANGELES - Uh oh. This can't be good. There is already a very serious division between two of the St. Louis Rams newest players, and it's over a very important issue, one central to the identity of the franchise. Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey were in the team's old stomping grounds this week for the NFLPA Rookie Premiere. They haven't spent too much time with the team yet, but enough that the two nearly inseparable teammates at college and pro teammates have different opinions of who has the most iconic hair feature at Rams Park: Les Snead's hair versus Jeff FIsher's mustache. "Snead's is better," Bailey said. "He looks like a mafia type." His teammate disagreed. "Definitely coach Fisher's mustache," Austin said, taking his stand. Both players spoke highly of the head coach and general manager. There was even some suggestion that each man derived some additional power from their main assets.

As it turns out, intense, unceasing skepticism about Jaime Garcia's shoulder turned out to be the right move. Garcia's back on the disabled list with a shoulder strain, which is bad, but this part is worse: He's worried about it. Surgery-worried. Jenifer Langosch: Garcia said shoulder pain is worse this year than last. He's legitimately concerned about needing a procedure to address the issue. — Jenifer Langosch (@LangoschMLB) May 18, 2013 The amazing thing about Garcia is that his last two starts were exactly as bad as they needed to be to make sure that he continued to be Jaime Garcia. Take a look at his numbers to date, which is how they'll look on the baseball card if he needs surgery: Year Age W L Win-Loss PercentageW / (W + L)For players, leaders need one decision for every ten team games.For managers, minimum to qualify for leading is 320 games." class="tooltip hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="win_loss_perc">W-L% 9 * ER / IPFor recent years, leaders need 1 IPper team game played.Bold indicates lowest ERA using current statsGold means awarded ERA title at end of year." class="tooltip sort_default_asc hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="earned_run_avg">ERA GS IP H R ER HR BB SO ERA+100*[lgERA/ERA]Adjusted to the player’s ballpark(s)." class="tooltip hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="earned_run_avg_plus">ERA+ 9 x H / IPFor recent years, leaders need 1 IPper team game played" class="tooltip sort_default_asc hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="hits_per_nine">H/9 9 x HR / IPFor recent years, leaders need 1 IPper team game played" class="tooltip sort_default_asc hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="home_runs_per_nine">HR/9 9 x BB / IPFor recent years, leaders need 1 IPper team game played" class="tooltip sort_default_asc hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="bases_on_balls_per_nine">BB/9 9 x SO / IPFor recent years, leaders need 1 IPper team game played" class="tooltip hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="strikeouts_per_nine">SO/9 SO/BBFor recent years, leaders need 1 IPper team game played" class="tooltip hide_non_quals" align="center" data-stat="strikeouts_per_base_on_balls">SO/BB 2010 23 13 8 .619 2.70 28 163.1 151 64 49 9 64 132 143 8.3 0.5 3.5 7.3 2.06 2011 24 13 7 .650 3.56 32 194.2 207 100 77 15 50 156 104 9.6 0.7 2.3 7.2 3.12 2012 25 7 7 .500 3.92 20 121.2 136 58 53 7 30 98 98 10.1 0.5 2.2 7.2 3.27 2013 26 5 2 .714 3.58 9 55.1 57 26 22 6 15 43 105 9.3 1.0 2.4 7.0 2.87 5 Yrs 39 25 .609 3.45 90 551.0 565 258 211 41 167 437 111 9.2 0.7 2.7 7.1 2.62 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Injured or healthy, ball-in-play lucky or unlucky, it's seven strikeouts per nine innings, a solid K:BB ratio, and (not pictured) a high ground ball rate. (In fact, higher in his nine 2013 starts [1.75 per fly ball] than ever before.) Which is why, I guess, I've always been (unjustifiably) optimistic about Garcia's health. His shoulder problems haven't yet pushed him out of the statistical profile that makes him an effective pitcher. Now he's hurt again and Scott Kazmir is throwing mid-90s fastballs, so what do I know? His replacement on the roster is Mitchell Boggs, probably because Ryan Jackson did something truly despicable a few years ago and he knows what it is. Boggs walked five and struck out four in his six AAA appearances, but/and most of the trouble was in his last appearance, when he walked three and allowed two hits in the course of retiring one batter. Six relief appearances—well, that's for the scouts to figure out. His replacement in the rotation might be Michael Wacha, but I'm at least as interested to see what the Cardinals plan on doing, in the medium term, with the three starters (Trevor Rosenthal, Seth Maness, Carlos Mar

The TST commander in chief is in California for the NFLPA Rookie Premiere event. These are the pictures and videos he has taken. He tried to capture the spirit of the thing. Tavon Austin in a Rams uniform for the first time. Stedman Bailey, Keenan Allen and Robert Woods posing in their new uniforms. The new Jaguars helmet up close Many hate on this new helmet, but I find it to be of good quality. Knile Davis is taking a snack break Geno Smith Warming up The WVU Crew Jonathan Franklin doing work Jaguars Offensive Weapon: Denard Robinson (Shockingly, his shoes are tied) Stedman Bailey Dancing Cordarrelle Patterson rocking the Ray Bands Denard Robinson; Investigative Reporter ROLL. DAMN. TIDE. The Future of Da Raiders? Tavon Austin gives the fans in St. Louis a shout out. He's a wee lad isn't he? All kidding aside, Rams nation can't wait to see you take the field. Follow Ryan on Twitter for more pictures and videos.