Giant Consequences

St. Louis has no room for error. Which is not the way you want to face San Francisco.

After a break that was sorely needed for both the team and the fans, the Cardinals get back to work tonight with significant pressure and weight being placed on this series in specific and the next two weeks as a whole.

Alex Crisafulli on Chirps this week summed it up, so I’ll paraphrase him here. The next twelve games are against the Giants, the Cubs, the Reds, and the Indians. Those games—with off days on either side of the two-gamer against Cleveland—take you right up to the trade deadline. It doesn’t matter that the Cards play only two winning teams (the Brewers and Reds) in August if they can’t be productive in this stretch of games. This stretch is key for a team that’s two games under .500 and eight games out. If they even go 6-6, that keeps them two games under and it seems unlikely that gap will have shrunk. How can you buy then?

Of course, the Cardinals may have to get someone even before then, since they currently don’t actually have five starters. Johan Oviedo will probably return to face the Cubs on Monday, but there’s no real clear option for the Tuesday game. Jake Woodford might get the call to keep John Mozeliak from having to make a deal before the deadline clock hits 48 hours, but that’s not exactly treating these games with the gravity they deserve.

We do, in our short attention span world, tend to think every game, every series matters. 2011 exists, of course, and the fact that the schedule gets weaker could mean that the club would be able to make up ground even if they just held serve over this stretch. You expect the Brewers to trade for an upgrade, but they’ve already done that a couple of times. The Cubs could sell off, making them easier to face in September. It’s possible to see them improve even if these games don’t go their way. It’s just not very likely.

The good thing is the toughest part is at the beginning and the Cardinals also know they can beat the Giants, having just done so. If they can do it again in Busch, the buzz around the team might get a little more tangible.

The Last Time We Met……

This section is usually a little more interesting when more than a week has passed between games. (Well, OK, it’s slightly more than a week but not in game time since there were four days off, five if you count the travel day after the series.)

The Cardinals were able to win the first two against the Giants, doing so with a surprising level of offense. It took a while in the first game, as Kevin Gausman had the Cards no-hit through six, but Kwang Hyun Kim matched him zero for zero. Matt Carpenter had a two-run triple in the seventh, which was the difference as the two teams matched a single run in the eighth and two runs in the ninth.

It was the opposite in the middle match due to a rare Goldando sighting. Paul Goldschmidt singled with one out then Nolan Arenado went deep to put St. Louis up 2-0. The Giants tied it in the third, but Goldschmidt untied it in the fourth with a bases-loaded single. Adam Wainwright gave up a third run in the fifth before turning it over to the bullpen. Thanks to insurance by Yadier Molina (RBI single) and Edmundo Sosa (home run), that bullpen was able to bend but not break and pull out a 6-5 win.

Unfortunately, sweeps are hard to come by. Almost as hard as it is for Johan Oviedo to get his first major league win. Oviedo was all right, but left after four having given up a couple of runs because his pitch count was at 80 when his spot came up in the of the fifth. Darin Ruf homered off of Andrew Miller in the bottom of the eighth to make it 5-2, but the double play Nolan Arenado hit into in the top of that inning with two on and one out might have been the real clincher.

The Opponent

Basically, it’s the same as last time. Their veterans are hitting well, their pitching is really good. The Cardinals have played two games since they saw the Giants, the Giants three in that span. There’s not much that’s changed.

The Mound Men

Friday: Kevin Gausman (9-3, 1.73 ERA, 2.56 FIP, 2.84 xERA) vs. Adam Wainwright (7-5, 3.58 ERA, 3.97 FIP, 4.13 xERA)

Saturday: Anthony Desclafani (10-3, 2.68 ERA, 3.49 FIP, 3.53 xERA) vs. Kwang Hyun Kim (4-5, 3.11 ERA, 3.77 FIP, 4.02 xERA)

Sunday: Johnny Cueto (6-5, 4.15 ERA, 4.02 FIP, 4.80 xERA) vs. Wade LeBlanc (0-2, 4.78 ERA, 5.41 FIP, 5.63 xERA)

—xERA courtesy of FanGraphs

Gausman versus Wainwright, especially at home, should be an interesting if low-scoring affair. As noted, Gausman kept the Cards no-hit through six innings last time and Uncle Charlie is legendarily good at Busch Stadium. Unlike Waino, Gausman made his Sunday start, allowing just one run in six innings against the Nationals.

The Cardinals missed DeSclafani in the most recent matchup of these two teams, but they know him well from his time with the Reds. They saw him in back to back starts last August, when he gave up 10 hits and nine runs in eight total innings. That was atypical of his normal results against St. Louis, though. He has a career 3.75 ERA against them, a 3.35 mark in eight starts at Busch. He’s had a good season, as you can tell, and last time out shut out Washington for six innings, giving up just three hits and striking out six.

Finally, like the ringing in your ears after you’ve been kicked in the head, Cueto returns to face the Cards in the finale. He was the one that started the second game, where Nolan Arenado went deep early, and hasn’t started since then.

The Hot Seat

Between now and the trade deadline, much of the focus is going to be on John Mozeliak and Michael Girsch. Which way they will go and what decisions they will make are sure to be the one thing most fans are focusing on.

Dispatches From The Front

Much like Yoda with the Wookiees, I have had good relations with Craig Vaughn and his band of commenters over at THE San Francisco Giants Blog. I forgot to hit up Craig before the last series but I’ve rectified that this time out. Here are his thoughts on the team.

“I am surprised as anyone right now about the Giants success. It still makes no sense to me. They have the largest coaching staff in baseball and I have come around on the importance of that. Guys like Brandon Crawford have completely bought in. He works with 3 hitting coaches and talks about his ‘bat path’ and things like that--things he definitely didn't discuss or know about with the previous hitting regime. The hitters all go up to the plate with a plan and it involves either getting on the first pitch in the zone they are looking for or grinding out the at bat. Whatever they're doing it's working

I'm assuming the pitching staff is working with the coaching staff the same way. There is no reason these guys should be so consistently good.”

Scoreboard Watching

I want to add this section in for the second half so we can keep track of what the other relevant teams are doing. I’m going to focus on the NL Central right now—if the wild card race looks reasonable (I know, technically they are closer to the WC than the division, but they have a lot more teams in the mix there) then we’ll add that in as well.

While the Cardinals are hosting the Giants, Milwaukee will be at Cincinnati. The Reds just took three of four from the Brewers before the break, so another series win by Cincy and things get interesting. The Cubs, meanwhile, go out to Arizona, so even in their state you figure that’s three wins. Hopefully it’s not enough to stop the selloff. It’d be great if the Cubs made some deals before Monday, though that seems unlikely.

Assorted Crudités

It was reported in a Puerto Rico newspaper that Yadier Molina hopes to finalize an extension for next year (and perhaps 2023) by the end of the year, though talks are just beginning. Molina’s been above average this season (1.0 bWAR overall) though a lot of that was done in April. He is hitting .281 in July thanks to two three-hit games but his OPS is .678. I’d like Molina back if he could actually time-share the position (which would be best for him) and if he announced his retirement at the beginning of the year so he and Adam Wainwright (who I believe will be back for next year as well) could go out on a retirement tour. I’d buy that tour shirt.

As of 9:15 this morning (right before I publish this) the Cardinals still haven’t announced their rotation for the series. I’m pretty confident it will be what is above but you never know. That’s somewhat a factor of the uncertainty in the rotation but also, teams just don’t announce things as far in advance as they used to for various reasons. Still, the Cardinals only have three starters actually on hand, so the order might change but the names won’t.

Paul DeJong has shown some signs of life this month (.296/.387/.593) which is great to see. It also may coincide with Mike Shildt choosing his opportunities rather than running him out there every day. He’s not started three of the 10 games this month, missing one entirely and pinch-hitting in two more. If they can effectively platoon him, Edmundo Sosa (.579 OPS in July, but .688 if you go back to June 24), and Matt Carpenter (1.110 OPS in 15 July plate appearances), they can maximize what they have. That shouldn’t preclude them from looking for an upgrade there, but with limited trade chips it might not be their most pressing need.

Random Links

Currently listening to: I mowed last night so I was able to finish up Chirps 113: Alex Fixes the Derby and almost made it through Cardinals Off Day 13: The All-Star Break Spectacular. (Ben, I don’t know for sure but you may have found that Athletic article here, as I linked to it in the first Giants post.) Both shows were excellent as always, of course. I imagine you are regular listeners of them, but if not, go download them!

A new Meet Me at Musial went up last night as Allen and I got to dig into the minors and the draft with Kyle Reis. You know nobody knows the system better than Kyle that doesn’t draw a paycheck from St. Louis Cardinals Baseball Club LLC (and even some of them don’t, I bet!) so if you are interested in prospects, check that out.

1 John 5:3-5