St. Louis Cardinals: Who’s hot, Who’s not, Memphis Edition

The St. Louis Cardinals have had an outstanding April offense.  Have the Memphis Redbirds mirrored them?

The AAA-affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals is the Memphis Redbirds.  In this post, I will once again examine the AAA players to report on who wearing the baby birds on the bat is hot and who is not at this point in the season.

Offense

Let’s start this examination by looking to see if the Memphis Redbirds are keeping pace with the Cardinals in the offense department.  For starters, while the Cardinals have nine players batting north of the .250-mark, the Memphis Redbirds have eight holding this rank.

For starters, while the Cardinals have nine players batting north of the .250-mark, the Memphis Redbirds have eight holding this rank.

The Cardinals batting above the fabled Mendoza line are Matt Holliday, Carlos Martinez, Stephen Piscotty, Jeremy Hazelbaker, Yadier Molina, Aledmys Diaz, Jaime Garcia, Greg Garcia (now with Memphis), and Eric Fryer.  The inclusion of two pitchers on this list should indicate the small sample size of some of this list.

The Memphis Redbird players batting above the Mendoza line are Mike Ohlman, Matt Williams, , Alex Mejia, Carlos Peguero, Charlie Tilson, and Nick Martini.

Pulling out some shining stars from the Redbirds offense, fans should keep a close eye on the likes of Tilson and Peguero, and even someone like Jonathan Rodriquez.

Tilson holds a .796 OPS and has batted three doubles, two triples, and has accounted for five RBI.

Rodriquez holds a lesser OPS at .634 yet has batted three doubles, two home runs, and has accounted for thirteen RBI.

Peguero- arguably the hottest player on this offensive list- holds a .842 OPS and has batted three doubles, three home runs, and has accounted for ten RBI.

On the “who’s not” list for offense, Dean Anna and Patrick Wisdom (even Jacob Wilson) are rounding out the bottom everyday players in relation to batting average.  Anna is saddled with a .173 average in fifty-two at-bats.  Wisdom is saddled with a .182 average in forty-four at-bats.  Even more heartbreaking to me (see mine and other’s praise-to-date) is Wilson’s weak batting average of .189 in fifty-three at-bats.

Pitching

The Cardinals have had some great and not-so-great pitching of late.  With wow-ing performances from Martinez, Sueng Hwan Oh, and Trevor Rosenthal, the Cardinals pitching staff has impressed.  These players hold ERAs respectively of 1.93, 1.38, and 2.57.

On the not-so-great side of things, the Cardinals have pitchers like Adam Wainwright, Mike Leake, and Seth Maness holding ERAs of 7.16, 5.83, and 6.75 respectively.  These are players who MUST improve.

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The Redbirds have positive standouts like Jeremy Hefner who has returned from Tommy John surgery to achieve an ERA of 2.95 in 21.1 innings pitched.  Joining Hefner is Ryan Sherriff and Dean Kiekhefer.  Sherriff, from the pen, has pitched 9.2 innings and holds a 1.86 ERA.  Kiekhefer, who may well be called-up as we have predicted before, has pitched 8.2 innings from the pen and holds an outstanding 0.00 ERA.

On the downside of things for the Redbirds, pitchers such as Thomas Lee and Sam Tuivailala hold the team’s worst ERAs.  Lee, a starting pitcher who has pitched 21.1 innings, has had a rough time on the mound and owns a 5.48 ERA.  Tuivailala, who is a closer of the future if he can get his stuff together, has appeared in 8.2 innings and owns a sad 5.19 ERA.

At the time of writing this article, the Memphis Redbirds are dead last in their division with a record of 8-12 and win percentage of .400.  The Redbirds have a home record of 5-7 and road record of 3-5.  In the last ten games, the Redbirds have won three and lost seven and are on a four-game losing streak.

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The Cardinals too are having a rough bump and are in the midst of a two-game losing streak going into today’s game.  Let us hope that both the Cardinals and the Redbirds find their winning ways.  Follow me on Twitter and let’s cheer loudly enough to get our birds in flight again.