St. Louis Cardinals: Spring Training Recap Days 3 & 4

Spring Training is well under way, and the St. Louis Cardinals aren’t taking days off this early. What were the sights and sounds of the weekend?

I will admit that I got lost in the beautiful weather yesterday, and totally forgot about Spring Training for a little while. However, the St. Louis Cardinals were getting work done despite my leisurely Saturday in Forest Park

Not just one lineup

According to Derrick Goold, Mike Matheny has stated that he is going to experiment with many different lineups this season. While I will believe this when I see it. Matheny was quoted as saying, “We’re going to throw a lot of stuff against the wall”. This sounds good, as long it is always evolving to player performance.

Meaning, that if Matt Carpenter is struggling in the two-hole again, let’s not let it happen for two months again. My opinion is that Carpenter needs to be kept in the leadoff role in order to avoid a disaster like this.

So, as long as the lineup is evolving based off of performance and Carpenter stays in the leadoff role, Matheny can do whatever he wants with the lineup to increase production.

“Now it’s just about competing. Being out there competing–whether that’s the first day or the fifth day.” Adam Wainwright

Pena likes Wacha’s changeup

Newcomer Brayan Pena caught Michael Wacha for the first time yesterday, and Jenifer Langosch overheard him tell Wacha that he would “make a lot of money with that pitch”. In other news water is wet, and baseballs are round.

"You'll make a lot of money with that pitch!" - Brayan Pena to Michael Wacha after catching Wacha's changeup. #stlcards
— Jenifer Langosch (@LangoschMLB) February 20, 2016

The biggest thing surrounding Wacha in 2016 is going to be fastball command. If Wacha doesn’t have command of his fastball, the results won’t be pretty, as hitters will lay off his great changeup and tee off on the fastball like the Cubs did in the NLDS.

Cause for concern or precaution for Martinez

Early this morning we received word from Brian Stull that Carlos Martinez was not going to be throwing a bullpen today. This was not the news we wanted to hear right away in Spring Training, Carlos is going to be one of the most important parts of the Cardinals’ rotation this season, and him not recovering from his shoulder injury would be bad.

However, according to Mike Matheny’s comments it is not cause for concern from the young right-hander, “He won’t be throwing off the mound. He’ll be doing everything else with the guys. Once again, just kind of tempered back–but everything he’s done up to this point has responded extremely well. All positive feedback.” Did you hear that? That was the collective sigh of relief from Cardinals’ fans everywhere.

Waino to start things off

Mr. Stully was full of great news today, as he informed us that Adam Wainwright would start things off for the Cardinals on Opening Day. Josh Brown has some analysis on this for you if you haven’t seen it yet. This is a no-brainer, Waino will be looking to repeat his brilliant performance against the Cubs from last season, and add to his impressive resume.

Matheny played things cautiously telling Stull, “He’s our guy–there’s no doubt about it. We’ve got to see how spring goes, any setbacks. Like I said before anything that takes us off normal course but this guys’ the leader of our staff. He means so much to our club in a lot of regards. He leads well.”