Get Up, Baby!

so here's the deal: comment-spam led to 1&1 randomly locking my site, which led to me yelling at people in india for four hours. o this modern age: previously, the media had to yell at people in india via telegraph. main site'll be back up later today, but until then... read this, ah, one post. and bookmark this in case 1&1 whacks out again.

Monday, July 10, 2006

And we're back.

Get Up, Baby! proper is now back online. Thanks for your patience.

re: hating to say "I told you so."

I'd say this is an exception, mainly because that was the most cathartic victory all season. (I'd link to my rev. redbird-mandated Optimistic Post from a while back, but present facilities being as they are that's not so possible.) It's a talented team, as the mantra goes--but yesterday's win even had the, ah, unskilled laborers playing the most important roles of all. Sometimes things just work out like that; here are some things that don't happen when Team is mired in a losing streak:
  • The Astros don't slink off with just two runs in a three-XBH sixth inning. Remember the XBH binges during The Streak and The Royals Thing? How the Cardinals would walk batters and then let them score on doubles through the gap or long home runs? Did it look like anyone not wearing red would ever ground into a double play during the White Sox series?

  • The Cardinals don't blow a big, late-gained lead. Just kidding. They do that.

  • Izzy doesn't get out of the ninth. Here is a guy overmatched; Isringhausen's thrown a ton of pitches over the last two days, and he comes in in the ninth with a runner on base. He allows the one run, blowing the save, but then gets out of the inning when... the completely insignificant runner on first base is picked off!? Molina's always been heralded as a great defensive catcher, but I never heard of a scout rating his mind control tool an 80. What are the odds that the Astros trade out for their backup catcher? That they leave the notoriously flaky, slow-moving Munson on first? That he takes a vesitigial secondary lead? They're slim, extremely slim--unless you're Yadier Molina, in which case everybody has a dangerously long lead.

  • Braden Looper doesn't not suck. So it's the bottom of the tenth; the Cardinals, already struck by a sacrifice fly to tie a game they had secured, have squandered a hustling one-out triple from Albert Pujols. The whole scene has seemed inevitable since Chris Carpenter's last exasperated pitch. In comes Braden Looper, the most snakebitten ex-closer to take up residence in the Cardinals bullpen since Heathcliff Slocumb in 2000. He of the 95 mph fastball and the 95.00 WHIP charges out of the bullpen and gets a lineout. Then he proceeds to give up a double, hit a batter, and then walk another one. Still in the middle of the order.

    He ponders the situation. Strokes his chin.

    It's a large chin, but he finishes the job and, after some careful consideration he continues on his gameplan--throw the ball really hard and sort of at them. Strikes out Preston Wilson and Jason Lane in order. End threat. The bullpen depleted, he walks back out the next inning and throws a fastball that Eric Bruntlett has to swing at to protect his eyes. Eric Munson proves an equally quick out, and up walks Roy Oswalt, pinch hitter by default.

  • Roy Oswalt doesn't not-double. And Looper, finally looking like the big, hulking closer the Cardinals signed to a multi-year contract, throws a meatball that Oswalt, yesterday's goat, slashes into the left field corner. Poetic justice! The Cardinals felled, not only by their own poor personnel moves in the offseason, but also by the very pitcher that gave them a brief reprieve. Except he missed the bag. How rare is that? Rare enough that one doesn't even have to think about subdividing it further, into "missed bag plays that actually get called by the umpires." But the... demonstrative behavior of the Astros' first base coach, Jose Cruz, appeared to tip off both first base ump Bob Davidson and tenth-inning goat Juan Encarnacion to Oswalt's baserunning whiff, and the second most unlikely play of the entire game is complete.

  • Aaron Miles, etc. Aaron Miles can't hit a 97 mph fastball. He hit a 97 mph fastball. It's safe to say that, two weeks ago, the Cardinals don't recover from the unthinkable happening. And yet, after Brad Lidge managed to retire Albert Pujols, La Russa found an obscure rule in the book that allowed him to designate a surrogate daddy for "Lights Out", and suddenly Aaron Miles was in business.

Sometimes these things happen, sometimes they don't. When you're a good team, rather than a great one, they become inordinately important. Here's to more completely asinine developments in the Cardinals' favor in the second half.

Saturday, July 08, 2006

And here's the comeback win.

There you go; clean win against a division rival, and then a gritty, hard-fought comeback won by The Albert and scrubbinis Dunc'n'Miles in equal parts. Is the late June bad taste in your mouth gone yet? I mean, give it time, but certainly the Cardinals couldn't have afforded to let their skid run through the all-star break--and guaranteeing a series split is as good a way as any to prevent that.

Of course, the win glosses over the fact that Young Reyes hasn't resembled the pitcher who almost no-hit the White Sox in several starts. Is it because of LaDunc's ever-insistent stance on utilizing a two-seam fastball he can't throw? Well, here's what a cursory glance at his game log turns up:

Strike% K:BB Groundout%
thru shutout 69% 7.00 36.2
post-shutout 56% 1.20 58.1

Am I ready to attribute all of that to an overriding demand on Reyes to throw lots of sinkers? No. For one thing, his first start after the shutout he induced four groundouts and eight flyouts. And for another, these numbers would look similar if he was just having a rough couple of starts, or if he was working on adjusting to a league adjusting to him. But they're certainly troubling, and if he has changed his approach, it's... probably not a good plan. More groundouts don't matter when the side-effect is allowing more baserunners.

meta

Okay, I've got this great idea for a web host. See, what we'll do is sign people up to "business" accounts, but not actually support them; for example, we can lock their accounts on a Friday without telling them why. Then, when they call tech support, we can give them the runaround until 9, when the people with the ability to unlock accounts go home for the weekend. Then, around 1 AM, we tell them that sometime within the next four hours the account will be unlocked, but here's the cool part: it won't be! Because our tech support, separated by a continent from our corporate offices and connected only via e-mail, can't do it! They're not allowed!

It's going to be hardcore awesome!

Marqed Man

Because I really do love you readers, I've provided a capsule recap, for use if your casual-sort-of-a-baseball-fan friends or relatives ask you how yesterday's game went. It goes as follows.

"Jason Marquis threw a ton of great-looking curveballs, going seven solid innings. David Eckstein struck out twice, but Juan Encarnacion picked him up with two walks and Gary Bennett filled in for Yadier Molina with three hits. John Rodriguez put the capper on it with a 450 foot home run, and Jason Isringhausen went more than an inning without a hitch."

That'll probably do it. Despite all of those happenings, this is as much a "business as usual" game as the Cardinals have played all month. The starter pitched well, the offense scored enough runs, and the closer slammed the door. The Marquis curveball was the good one, the one that gets seen about as often as Harper Lee dates; it didn't have a lot of movement, but what was there was sharp and effortless, kind of like the movement Anthony Reyes gets on his changeup. Because of its consistency and bite, I expect him to move to a forkball/screwball lineup in time for his next scheduled start.

But really, don't worry about Marquis today. Savor the clean, efficient win against a heated division rival. Savor the idea of the other team walking six. Savor the fact that, tomorrow, Young Reyes appears to match up against some sort of zombie:



He looks like one of the Hussein brothers in the "After" photos... is that a liver spot?