St. Louis Cardinals: Boring, Boring Cardinals

h2>Going into tonight’s game, I was trying to hold onto hope.  I am still trying to hold onto hope, but opening the season 0-3 is tough.  The St. Louis Cardinals, for lack of any better terminology, are just plain boring.

Our St. Louis Cardinals just lost- AGAIN- to the Pittsburgh Pirates.  Three games played, three games lost.  The season is long, thank god, but these three games have felt longer.  To me, these losses simply don’t make sense with the personnel on the roster.

Matt Carpenter should be playing better than his current pitiful .091 batting average following tonight’s 0-4 showing at the plate.  REALLY?!  To compound this, Matt Holliday is showing poorly too with a batting average of .100 after tonight’s 0-3 performance.

Sunday was brutal.  Tuesday was frustrating.  Tonight was… well, sleepy.  I want to find positives but I’m having a real hard time.  Looking at the offense, only Jeremy Hazelbaker and Greg Garcia (I know, I’m shocked too) have positive batting averages of .400 and .500 respectively.

Quickly about Hazelbaker, what an amazing player we are getting to watch, no?  Hazelbaker might well be the solution to this sleepy team.  I have written much about Hazelbaker and believe in his ability to help the team out.

Defensively, there aren’t a terrible amount of great performances either.  Kolton Wong, just to name one player who is standing out as a sore thumb defensively, owned two errors in tonight’s game!  TWO ERRORS?!!  In addition to this, the pitching staff cannot seem to get it together.  W

In addition to this, the pitching staff cannot seem to get it together.  Adam Wainwright lasted only six innings and now holds an ERA of 4.50.  Michael Wacha, who in my opinion should NOT be listed as the number two starter, lasted only 4.1 innings and holds an ERA of 8.31.

Mike Leake, tonight’s starter, who I had high hopes of coming into the season, lasted 4.1 innings tonight and now holds an ERA of 8.31.  See a bad trend?

What has seemed a strong positive has been the bullpen.  The pen has performed to expectation- with the slight exception of Seth Maness (but I’m a poor judge of Maness as I am not a fan and think he needs to go to Memphis to work on his stuff)- and tonight was no different.

Tonight’s star, in my opinion, was Matthew Bowman who almost didn’t make this team. Bowman threw two innings and man did his stuff move!  Bowman surrendered only one hit across these two innings and induced a double play to tip-toe out of danger in his final inning.  Bowman glowed and he may well spell rest for some of Matheny’s bromances in the pen (read: Maness).

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The bottom line is this: the team needs to perform.  I wish I knew the magic bullet to fix the problems we are seeing but I’m really lost.  I feel that the team could recover from a weak offense.  I feel that the team could recover from a weak defense.  I feel that the team could recover from poor pitching.  I’m worried this year’s team is facing too many of these weaknesses in tandem.

Does this mean that I think all is lost?  No way.  I’m discouraged but not down.  The season is really long and there is plenty of time to reverse the wronged ship.

Some Bonus News

Today, I had the privilege of meeting and interview GM John Mozeliak at a press conference in Memphis.  At this conference, the team announced that the organization has agreed to a five-year extension for the AAA-affiliate to remain in Memphis.  I, for one, am overly excited about this.

The big news, however, came from Mozeliak talking about Marco Gonzales.  In his talk, Mo stated that Marco is going- as has now been reported- for a second opinion for the pain felt in his left elbow BUT that he (Mo) feels that Marco will not require surgery to repair this pain.  He did not go further into the discussion but it seems the team is confident that Marco’s season may not yet be completed.

All said and done, the Marco news is good, the 5-year extension for the Memphis Redbirds, and the performances of Bowman and Hazelbaker show us some glimmer of hope.  Let’s hope tomorrow’s day off for the Cardinals (who clearly need something to reset their views) will be the rest and re-centering necessary.

Next: From Pham to Bourn

Tomorrow night is opening night for the Memphis Redbirds and I’m hoping for an outstanding performance to wake me from the boring Cardinals!  I’ll be at Autozone Park for my third straight day and I look forward to bringing back with me exciting news and perhaps a few names that could spell relief from boredom!