St Louis Cardinals

All championship teams have this in common; can you guess what it is? I’ll bet my baseball heads can. 

The answer is a reliable closer—one who consistently gets the job done, especially in crunch time. 

After witnessing Big Adam Wainwright close out the Detroit Tigers in the 2006 World Series, many people in Cardinals Nation are starting to question whether or not Ryan Franklin is the man for the job.

Tony La Russa has gotten away with using Ryan Franklin as the Cardinals' closer for two years, and today should be the day he makes a change that is two years overdue. Franklin is nothing more than a replacement level pitcher who has benefited from high strand rate (85.7 percent in 2009), low BABIP (.249 in 2009 and .267 in 2010), and home run-to-fly ball ratios (3.2 percent in 2009 and 8.2 percent in 2010) during his reign as closer.

The St. Louis Cardinals' impressive hot streak on offense came to an abrupt stop as the team entered a pitching battle today against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Chris Carpenter started the game for the Red Birds, facing off against the Dodgers' Chad Billingsley. Carpenter gave up zero runs in his seven innings, and Billingsley responded with eight scoreless innings of his own.

I noticed something peculiar about Albert Pujols' approach at the plate during an at bat last night in Arizona.  He picked up and put back down his normally semi-stationary left leg as the pitch came in.

After Friday night's excruciating blown save and subsequent loss, I planned to pen a brief debate on whether or not Ryan Franklin should keep the Cardinals' closer role.

Now, after blowing his second save in as many days, the question is whether or not Tony LaRussa will actually keep going to Franklin in save situations, where he's converted just one of his four chances.

The city of St. Louis is in shambles.

The St. Louis Blues are wrapping up a blunder of a season, the Rams were 60 minutes away from a Wild Card berth but couldn’t seem to top a backup quarterback at best, and general manager John Mozeliak and the rest of the Cardinals front office accomplished virtually nothing during the offseason when dealing with the best player Major League Baseball has seen in decades…maybe ever.

Following a horrendous spring training in which Jamie Garcia gave up 37 hits and 15 earned runs in his final 17 innings, many questioned whether or not Garcia would be able to build on top of his impressive rookie campaign, where he accumulated 14 wins.  

The emergency surgery to remove Matt Holliday's appendix certainly harms the heart of the St. Louis Cardinals lineup. But with the advent of laparoscopic procedures, the Cardinals have yet to put the All-Star slugger on the DL.  

His absence and the early-season struggles of Albert Pujols have left St. Louis hurting for runs early this season. But it could be worse.

With ace Adam Wainwright sidelined for the year with Tommy John surgery, the St. Louis Cardinals are going to need someone to step up and pitch them deep into ball games this year, and the best candidate for that is last year's rookie sensation, Jaime Garcia.

Today he didn't disappoint, throwing a complete game shutout, leading the Cards to their first win of the year, 2-0 over the Padres. It was the first Major League shutout thrown this season. 

After ending last season with a bad taste in their mouth, the San Diego Padres opened the 2011 campaign against the team that ended their last two playoff runs.

Despite having only one win in their last 13 meetings in St. Louis, the Padres got off on the right foot against a familiar foe.