St. louis Cardinals: Spring Training Recap Day 7

The St. Louis Cardinals have completed a full weeks worth of Spring Training workouts. Let’s take a look at the happenings around Day 7.

Wow, it’s already been one week since the St. Louis Cardinals’ pitchers and catchers reported to Spring Training. This is quite a wonderful thing, as it seems like Spring Training is moving faster than I thought it would. Today, we will continue to look around the stories and highlights from the workouts.

Rosie still wants to start

According to Mark Saxon, Trevor Rosenthal still hasn’t closed the book on becoming a starting pitcher. While the title suggests that Rosenthal really wants to go down the road of becoming a starting pitcher, it is a bit misleading when you read the article.

In Saxon’s piece, Rosenthal tells him, “It’s not a closed door, but it’s not something I really think about. I just show up and work hard and, if they see me throw once and are like, ‘Oh, maybe we need him to fill in at a different spot,’ I’ll do it. But it seems to be working where I’m at,” basically saying that he knows that he’s got a good thing going as the closer.

While it is a nice little fantasy to wonder what the 100 MPH fastball would look like over the course of a start, Rosenthal hasn’t stated in over three seasons, and the longer he goes without, the less effective he will be when he does get his shot. Rosenthal is what he is, and with the Cardinals’ pitching system the way it is, he is not starting for this team any time soon.

Holliday option put on hold for now

Derrick Goold writes that at this moment nobody has approached Matt Holliday about his option for 2017. Holliday told Goold that he assumes it won’t be addressed until much later. We have mentioned how Holliday wants to remain and retire a Cardinal, but at this point it’s likely going to wait out the season.

When asked by Goold if he would be open to discussion during the season, Holliday said “Always, I would consider a lot of things”. Holliday needs to have a Holliday like season and stay healthy to force the Cardinals to take the option.

While I’d love for Holliday to retire a Cardinal, I would hate to see it as a shell of his former self. He’s too good a person and too good a player for that to happen.

The Wizard arrives

Everybody had news on the Cardinals’ Hall of Fame Shortstop and one of the 50 greatest Cardinals of all time, Ozzie Smith being in camp on Wednesday. However, Jenifer Langosch had this all covered in the best way possible.

She stated that “The Wizard” didn’t just show up as a publicity cry, he showed up and got to work in the infield with Matt Carpenter and Kolten Wong. He was picking it like it was 1985 all over again. Jen mentions that this is a sight that can be seen every year in Spring Training, but that it “is nevertheless a snapshot that never becomes tired for the current Cardinals in uniform.”

I can’t even imagine what it would be like to all of a sudden taking ground balls with the legend himself. So, for the Cardinals to have this ability every year, it has got to be special. In fact Kolten Wong mentioned this, “I was like, ‘Man, I’m throwing to a legend right now. I better make sure I throw these balls right in his chest.’ How good he still looks now, you can only imagine how good he was back then. Playing with that guy must have been something special.”

Someday people will be saying the same thing about Wong who’s defense should be greatly improved this year.

Matheny inspiring the team to face the challenges

The Cubs are the new team on the block and the Pirates are still chomping at the bit to finally win a division crown for the first time. However, Benjamin Hochman says those weren’t even topics of conversation for Mike Matheny in his annual address to the club.

Hochman adds that the theme of this speech was “Beat the Cubs by being the Cardinals”. Hochman quoted newcomer Brayan Pena’s response as this “When he was talking about how much he appreciates what he has, how much he appreciates the opportunity to be the leader of this ballclub, we all related to that. Not taking anything for granted. Our number one goal is to stick together.”

He then asked Wainwright, who said Matheny told them this, “we’ve got a lot to prove this year. And we’re a dangerous club. And you just kind of feed off that when it’s authentic, and you can tell when it’s authentic and when it’s not.” This is great, the history of this club and the leaders on this club is enough to get any player fired up for this season.

It’s time for these next seven days to hurry up, so we can finally see this team on the field again.

Next: Spring Training Recap Day 6

As always Cardinals’ fans, you stay wonderful and have a great night’s rest, and come back for more great coverage on the best team in baseball tomorrow.