Show-Me Kings

The Milwaukee Brewers have lost 15 of their last 22 games. Before Thursday night’s victory against Colorado, the Chicago Cubs had lost four straight and seven of their last 10. The Brewers have lost pitcher Ben Sheets until September and infielder Tony Graffanino for the season. An injury to outfielder Alfonso Soriano has Cubs fans singing the blues.

All this agony and despair at the top of the division hasn’t gone without notice. Even down in Houston, where the Astros are 8 ½ games back, optimistic thoughts are beginning to stir.

Things are getting interesting in the NL Central. And nowhere are they more interesting right now than in St. Louis. (more)

So how did the Cardinals brass spend the last hours before Tuesday’s trade deadline? By attempting to acquire pitcher Matt Morris. But the San Francisco Giants had other plans and shipped him off to Baseball Siberia, otherwise known as Pittsburgh.

Thank goodness for unanswered prayers. (more)

Back on June 20, I made the case why there is still hope for the Cardinals by pointing out the advantages of the schedule. Interleague play had ended, there were plenty of games left in the division and St. Louis was anticipating the return of pitcher Chris Carpenter, among others.

While Carpenter won’t be back — a huge blow to any chances of a comeback — the other two factors are still in play. (more)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa is angry over media reports. This time, the skipper was “irritated by media descriptions of the club’s treatment of injured players.” It doesn’t take a genius to solve this riddle. (more)

Judging by the meltdown in message board land, Cardinals fans haven’t been this upset since Don Denkinger was a World Series umpire. To play or not to play Albert Pujols was the question. Manager Tony La Russa’s answer was no.

In an All-Star game featuring a St. Louis manager, the only St. Louis player watched the entire affair from the dugout. (more)

After the Cardinals game last night, I could have sworn I heard Al Hrabosky make a comment to the effect that it was only the second time all year that the team had won a game by the score of 3-2 (or maybe it was win a game scoring three runs or less). Either way, I was curious to see if he was right. He couldn’t have been more wrong. (more)

The St. Louis Cardinals have now completed 81 games, or one-half, of their 2007 schedule. With a record of 38-43, it’s the worst performance of the Tony La Russa era. You have to go back to 1995, the last year of Anheuser-Busch ownership, to find a Cardinals team with a worse first half performance. (For some fun with the standings, check out BaseballRace.com).

There’s something else different about this team. For only the second time since the calendar rolled over to Y2K, the Cardinals find themselves looking up in the standings at the midway point. (more)

This seems timely given recent rumors and rumblings of trouble in the Cardinals front office. If Walt Jocketty does depart, what about this guy — Paul DePodesta? (more)

In his column today, Bryan Burwell says the “chatter around the league” is that the Cardinals have offered Anthony Reyes, John Rodriguez and a minor league prospect to the White Sox for pitcher Mark Buehrle. Burwell throws out the name of Double-A catcher Bryan Anderson and says if that’s indeed the trio, the deal is worth it. Assuming the White Sox would do that deal, does it make sense for the Cardinals? Long term, I’m not so sure. (more)

Until July 5th of 2006, Terry Evans was a farmhand in the St. Louis Cardinals system. On that day, the team that drafted him dealt to the Angels for pitcher Jeff Weaver. The Cardinals went on to win a World Series with Weaver pitching the clinching game. Evans was just another minor league outfielder with a dream of getting to the big leagues.

That dream turned into reality this week when outfielder Garrett Anderson hit the disabled list and Evans got the call. (more)