The St. Louis Cardinals took both split-squad games from the Orioles yesterday. Let's take a look at who had a hand in the victories.
In the first game, Cards won 6-5. It wouldn't have been quite that close, but Chris Perez struggled in his outing, giving up two runs before recording the save.
Otherwise, on the pitching front, things were not too bad. Kyle McClellan gave up one run in three innings; Brad Thompson allowed two run in three innings; but the rest of the bullpen did their jobs well.
Offensively, Joe Thurston continued his post-Schumaker-story tear, going 3-for-5 (and getting the call to play in the second game after Brendan Ryan could not go, but more on that later), Jon Jay had the same mark and scored two runs.
Nice to see Khalil Greene get a mark in the home run category, tallying his first of the spring as part of a two-hit day. I do not believe he'll hit .353 over the course of the season, but I think we can safely say that shortstop will be an offensive upgrade this year.
Keep an eye on Colby Rasmus, he went 1-for-3. There's a bit about his offseason routine up on the Post-Dispatch today. Sounds like he went to a lot of effort to make sure he can last through the daily grind of the season. I still am waiting to see him catch fire like he did last spring training, however.
In the second game, the Cards outscored the O's 3-1 with the only run for Baltimore coming off of Jason Motte in the ninth. So, apparently, the closer situation did not get any clearer yesterday.
Joel Pineiro started and kept his spring ERA at 0.00, allowing five hits in four innings but striking out four as well. I am not sure exactly when the bubble is going to burst on Pineiro. The odds of him having made fundamental adjustments that have eluded him most of his career are long, but if something has changed, this pitching staff is going to be a lot of fun to watch.
As mentioned above, Thurston played in this game as well, filling in as Ryan was sick. However, playing in two games across two different towns might have been a bit much for him, as he went 0-for-3. Those that did hit included Rick Ankiel, Ryan Ludwick, and Chris Duncan, who all had two hits each.
It was satifying to see Ludwick finally get his bat going, as even after those two hits, his spring average is still at .179. You have to wonder if Ludwick has heard a lot of the "fluke" talk and has put a little pressure on himself to make sure people realize it was not one. That and the nagging injuries from this spring may have put him in a bad frame of mind.
The talk of either game, though, was the fact that Skip Schumaker had a good day in the field in Game 1. He even finally got a shot at turning a double play, which went well. I don't think one day is going to make up for the misgivings that Tony La Russa and others were having this week, but it definitely helps, especially since almost everyone wants him to take the job to help free up the outfield situation.
Mark McGwire made one of his rare press appearances, talking about his new life as a hitting instructor. I really never thought of McGwire as a cerebral hitter that could teach—the large home run totals tend to lend to a stereotypical "grip it and rip it" idea—but it is obvious that he can connect with some hitters, at least. Schumaker raved about his time with Big Mac last year.
To get you through the weekend, I'll wrap up with some links that I've stumbled across in various ways. A couple links are on the newly updated blog roll as well.
First, Riding the Pine is a new Cardinals blog that has requested membership in the United Cardinal Bloggers. Right now, Eugene has an article about the top 10 Cardinal prospects, if you want to take a look.
Another blog that is just getting started is Birds In The Busch. It's written by three friends and has a lot of different ways to interact, including the most involved use of Twitter I have seen.
On the minor league side of things, we have Chirp Chatter, which is focused on the Memphis Redbirds and Koppers' Kaos and written by Cardinal farmhand David Kopp. These post may be helpful as the minor league season gets underway.
I received an email about a free web-based baseball game called Baseball Boss. I took a quick look around and it looks pretty good. I hope to get back over there and really get into it sometime this weekend.
Finally, I thought I'd mention that I will be writing a Cardinal highlight piece every month at Baseball Reflections, recapping the month that was, so to speak. My first piece about the offseason and how things look for 2009 should be up Wednesday morning.
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