Baseball Historians

Joel Pineiro did not have his best stuff today, lasting only 5 innings and allowing 4 runs on 6 hits, but the Cardinals played well enough to win until the 8th inning, when, with a 5-4 lead, recently-demoted closer Jason Isringhausen imploded, giving up 4 runs (3 earned, although the unearned run scored on an error […]

Todd Wellemeyer provided the Cardinals with exactly what they needed last night: a shut-down performance from their starting pitcher. The offense is still stranding a lot of runners and the bullpen still makes the calmest of Cardinal fans bite thier nails but none of that matters when you get the type of quality start Wellemeyer […]

Albert Pujols hit a big home run in the 8th ining to tie the game, but the Cardinals would fall apart in the 10th and lose their 6th of 7 games in an 8-4 loss to the Pirates last night.
Kyle Lohse pitched well, hopefuly regaining some of his early-season form in giving up 4 runs […]

Adam Wainwright struggled for the first time this season and was undone by a 5-run 3rd inning in the Cardinals’ 8-3 loss last night. Ryan Braun blasted 2 home runs for the second straight night while Yadier Molina and Tony LaRussa were ejected from the game. Molina, after being tossed for arguing balls and strikes […]

The Cards continued their recent struggles today, losing their 4th game in 5 days 5-3 to the Brewers. Former Cardinal Jeff Suppan by no means shut the St. Louis hitters down, but he did enough to beat out Cardinals starter Braden Looper, who gave up 4 runs on 7 hits through 6 innings.
The somewhat strange […]

Joel Pineiro pitched a fantastic game Saturday and handed a 3-0 lead over to the bullpen only to see it become a 3-3 tie going into the 9th inning. Luckily, the Cardinals aren’t the only team in the bigs with closer problems as Ryan Ludwick knocked home 2 off Brewers’ closer Eric Gagne to get the Cards […]

The last time he blew a save, I said it might be time for the Cardinals’ thinktank to start coming up with a contingent plan for closer Jason Isringhausen. After his 5th blown save of the year (and 2nd consecutive), it is Isringhausen, himself, who is saying it is time to “figure out what to […]

Kyle Lohse got off to a rough start, giving up 4 runs in the 1st inning, while the St. Louis offense was never really able to get it going against Jorge DeLaRosa in the Cards’ 9-3 loss to the Rockies this afternoon.
Lohse could only get through 4 innings today, giving up 7 runs on 8 […]

No one in the organization is saying it publicly, but there has got to be some growing concern about the performance of closer Jason Isrinhausen after his 4th blown save of the season ended in a 4-3 loss to the Rockies last night.
The blown save overshadowed a fantastic effort by starter Adam Wainwright, who pitched […]

Braden Looper was the hero on several fronts last night as the Cardinals beat the Colorado Rockies 6-5 at Busch Stadium. With the bullpen exhausted, Looper pitched into the 9th inning, allowing 4 runs on 10 hits over 8 1/3 innings pitched. He also came through at the plate, going 2-3 with a walk, run […]

No one expected much out of the Cardinals this year, their starting rotation was a joke, their bullpen was left depleted after being picked clean by the starting staff, and the only hope their offense had was a banged up Albert Pujols. Despite all of this the Cardinals had the most April wins in franchise […]

Before their game with the Chicago Cubs yesterday the Cards called up righthanded pitcher Mike Parisi from AAA Memphis and sent down Anthony Reyes. Reyes had been decent on the year, going 1-1 with 1 save and a 5.27 ERA in 9 appearances. His inconsistency seems to have been his downfall and the Cards decided […]

Jason Isringhausen has been struggling a bit early in the year, but with what has become a rare sellout crowd in St. Louis on-hand and a national TV audience watching, Izzy came through big to secure his 10th save of the year in the Cardinals’ 5-3 win over the Cubs last night.
The Cubs got the […]

Kyle Lohse had his first rough outing of the year, struggling through a 6-run 4th inning in the Cardinals’ 9-3 loss to the Chicago Cubs this afternoon. Lohse gave up 8 runs on 9 hits over 6 innings, pushing his ERA to 3.79 on the year. The Cards scored their 2 of their 3 runs […]

Ok, the title is a little bit lame…but who knows? Maybe it will catch on. Skip Shumaker was the extra-innings hero with a 2-run shot in the 11th inning to mask Jason Isrinhausen’s 3rd blown save of the year and send the Cards home winners in the 1st game of their series against division-rival Chicago, […]

SI.com’s John Donovan has an interesting article about crowded MLB outfields and mentions Tony LaRussa and his 5-man St. Louis outfield rotation:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writers/john_donovan/04/30/donovan.outfields/index.html

The Cardinals put the finishing touches on a fantastic month of April this afternoon with a 5-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds to put their record at 18-11. Braden Looper pitched a great game en route to his 4th win of the year and Aaron Miles and Rick Ankiel anchored the offense, each knocking home […]

Joel Pineiro was stellar and the Cardinals’ offense jumped all over Cincinnati starter Johnny Cueto in the first 2 innings to take the second game of their series with the Reds 7-2 tonight.
Skip Shumaker, who has been up and down all year, hopefully pulled himself out of a recent slump with a great performance setting […]

Today marks the 1 year anniversary of the death of Cardinals relief pitcher Josh Hancock. Hancock was killed in a car accident in St. Louis last year in which it was found he was intoxicated at the time of the crash. As sad as his passing was, it lead to the Cardinals (and several other […]

With former Cardinals’ General Manager Walt Jocketty in the house, the Cards could not complete a comeback after falling behind by 4 runs early and lost to the Cincinnati Reds 4-3 last night.
Todd Wellemeyer did not have his best start of the year but pitched well enough to win, giving up 4 runs-all by the […]

There may not have been any fireworks between Brandon Backe and Albert Pujols, but the Cardinals’ offense did show some life against the Houston starter in the 4-1 win this afternoon as Kyle Lohse continued to show that he may have been the biggest steal of the off-season.
Lohse, who got off to an incredible start but […]

Clearly there is no love lost between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Houston Astros. Flaring tempers between the two briefly interrupted a dynamite game between the team’s two ace pitchers which was decided in the bottom of the 9th, with Skip Shumaker coming through big to give the Cards a 4-3 win this afternoon.
Adam […]

A great outing by starter Braden Looper was wasted last night as closer Jason Isringhausen continued to struggle early in the year, blowing a save opportunity and coming up with a 3-2 loss to the Houston Astros last night.
Looper was phenomenal, allowing no runs, 2 hits, and only 1 walk over 7 innings. Unfortunately, Isringhausen […]

Joel Pineiro bounced back from rough outings in his first two starts of the year to help lead the Cardinals to a 6-2 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates and salvage a split in their short series.
Pineiro allowed just 1 run on 4 hits over 7 innings to pick up his first win of the year. That […]

The Cardinals came out firing, but the offense flamed out and the Pittsburgh Pirates came on late to win the game 7-4 last night.
The Cardinals jumped all over Pittsburgh starter Ian Snell in the 1st inning, with Troy Glaus knocking in 2 runs on a double and Adam Kennedy following him up with a 2-run […]

Came across and interesting blog comparing the Cardinals’ lineup to characters from the movie The Sandlot:
 http://charz2k.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-cardinals-are-best-team-in-baseball.html

The Cardinals lost another opportunity to sweep the Milwaukee Brewers, despite coming back from a late 5-run lead, losing in 13 innings 9-8 to close out the series at Miller Park.
Kyle Lohse struggled for the first time this season, giving up 4 runs on 8 hits over just 4 innings, leaving the game down 4-2. […]

The Cardinals pulled out a tight one tonight 4-3 to open up their series against the Milwaukee Brewers with a win. Adam Wainwright had another solid start, allowing only 2 runs over 7 innings, giving up 4 hits and striking out 6 in the no decision. The game was tied 3-3 in the 9th when […]

Braden Looper struggled for the second straight start, only this time instead of missing the strike zone and narrowly avoiding a disaster, he had trouble avoiding the bats of the San Francisco Giants in an 8-2 loss this afternoon.
Looper was undone by a rough 3rd inning, where the Giants put together 6 straight hits during […]

The Cardinals’ offense was shut down by Giants starter Tim Lincecum for the second time in a week and, despite a solid outing by Joel Pineiro in his second start back from the disabled list, San Francisco pulled out a 3-0 win today.
Lincecum allowed only 6 hits over his 7 scoreless innings and was supported […]