4-27 Post Game Thread

[jim]

He struck out the side in the first. Apparently, there was an out pitch somewhere.

If you ask me, he tries to pitch up too much...at least in the two starts I have seen. Sometimes hitters swing and miss, sometimes they don't. And when they don't miss, it goes a long way.

It seemed to me that he lost alot by the 4th inning. Again, wonderful WGN with their crummy camera angles and no speed readings, I can't say for sure. But to the eye his velocity dropped quite a bit from the 1st inning, maybe he was just going with 2 seamers more, I don't know. But the 2nd time through the order he just couldn't put guys away at all.

[clevername]

I'm really glad we re-signed Jim Edmonds so he can be pinch hit for with So freaking Taguchi in crucial late game situations.

WORD. On the other hand, Preston Wilson is left in to face the righty, no problem.

I'd love to see TLR get grilled about this in the post-game conf. We'd be having an entirely different discussion here if it'd been Edmonds and Speezer in the 8th instead of So and PDub.

I'm far from a LaRussa basher, but I'm really scratching my head at this one.

I didn't mind the PH. Tags is tough to double up, you have a suicide possibility if the count works in your favor.

But, Jim, you HAVE to use Spiezio or the bat boy or someone for Wilson.
That strikeout was soooooooooooooooooo predictable. Why can't LaRussa see the obvious?

Disagree. Speez is much better from the left side than the right, and who is going to play CF? You put Tags up there, a guy that puts the ball in play and isnt a huge DP risk, and save Speez for a different spot (like the one where he almost tied the game up).

I dont fault TLR for that move at all.

I'm not so sure Taguchi is such a DP risk improvement over Jimmy. He's just about patented the groundball to short and his speed isn't what it used to be.

My whole problem with the situation is pinch hitting for Jimmy in the first place. He's struggling right now, sure...is pinch hitting for him going to help him out of that? Should we have been pinch hitting for Albert earlier this month? He's our "third best hitter" and we pinch hit for him in the absolutely most crucial point in the game and we do it with a hitter nonone expected to actually get a a hit.

[Mary1966]

I re-read the Tinker-Evers-Chance parody and I fail to see what is a "cheap shot" about it. Perhaps TLR decided to pick a fight with Bernie because he didn't want to talk to him right now with the team struggling.

[jim]

I'm really glad we re-signed Jim Edmonds so he can be pinch hit for with So freaking Taguchi in crucial late game situations.

WORD. On the other hand, Preston Wilson is left in to face the righty, no problem.

I'd love to see TLR get grilled about this in the post-game conf. We'd be having an entirely different discussion here if it'd been Edmonds and Speezer in the 8th instead of So and PDub.

I'm far from a LaRussa basher, but I'm really scratching my head at this one.

I didn't mind the PH. Tags is tough to double up, you have a suicide possibility if the count works in your favor.

But, Jim, you HAVE to use Spiezio or the bat boy or someone for Wilson.
That strikeout was soooooooooooooooooo predictable. Why can't LaRussa see the obvious?

Disagree. Speez is much better from the left side than the right, and who is going to play CF? You put Tags up there, a guy that puts the ball in play and isnt a huge DP risk, and save Speez for a different spot (like the one where he almost tied the game up).

I dont fault TLR for that move at all.

I'm not so sure Taguchi is such a DP risk improvement over Jimmy. He's just about patented the groundball to short and his speed isn't what it used to be.

My whole problem with the situation is pinch hitting for Jimmy in the first place. He's struggling right now, sure...is pinch hitting for him going to help him out of that? Should we have been pinch hitting for Albert earlier this month? He's our "third best hitter" and we pinch hit for him in the absolutely most crucial point in the game and we do it with a hitter nonone expected to actually get a a hit.

-Platoon advantage
-Better contact/bat control
-Better speed

I don't think it was a bad move. Edmonds takes a seat against alot of lefties, Edmonds struggling would not have entered my decision process.

The non-move that was made was more curious to me, why let Wilson hit?
As soon as they bring Dempster in the game, now is when you push the Speez button. That one doesn't make sense to me.

[greenback44]

I re-read the Tinker-Evers-Chance parody and I fail to see what is a "cheap shot" about it. Perhaps TLR decided to pick a fight with Bernie because he didn't want to talk to him right now with the team struggling.

I'd buy that. And I hear the local Schnuck's was out of prune juice too.

[GatewaySnayke]

Reading VEB this morning, it's clear from that fourth inning that Reyes is still learning how to pitch. It's the same thing Wainwright is going through. They both show flashes of absolute dominance, followed by absolute crap because they don't mix their pitches well enough.

[Jmodene]

I don't think the parody was a "cheap shot" so much as it was just bulletin board material, which we really didn't need to be providing the Cubs.

They've been struggling; why wake up a sleeping dog?

Remember, TLR's been on the short end of that sort of stick before; one reason the Dodgers upset the A's in 1988 was because of Bob Costas' comments before the Series, calling the Dodgers one of the "worst teams ever to make it to a World Series" - which provided LaSorda the bulletin board material he needed to fire his team up.

So I can understand why TLR would be miffed.

[businessmansspecial]

Link to the story and video:

May I say, my favorite part is when Tony looks around and says is there anything else and there was complete silence.

http://www.kmov.com/topstories/stories/ ... 559cc.html

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Jason Marquis gets his World Series ring on Saturday from the St. Louis Cardinals. On Friday night, he beat the team that didn't use him in the postseason for the second straight time.

"It's a good feeling, obviously," Marquis said after working into the seventh inning in the Chicago Cubs' 5-3 victory. "I made some good friends here, good relationships, and I had the three good years of my career here.



News 4 Video of incident "But it's nice to be on this side and get my team a win."

Felix Pie and Aramis Ramirez hit two-run homers in the fourth inning for the Cubs, who have won consecutive games for the first time since April 6-7. Left fielder Alfonso Soriano threw out two runners, one at the plate, and was 1-for-5 with two strikeouts.

"He looks so much more in place in left field," manager Lou Piniella said. "Now what we need to do is get him hitting the ball."

Marquis (3-1) led the NL with 16 losses to go with a 6.02 ERA last year, didn't pitch in the division series and wasn't even on the Cardinals' roster for the NLCS and World Series. He allowed three runs and five hits in 6 2-3 innings, six days after throwing seven scoreless innings in Chicago.

"We've seen him that way when he was with us," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. "He won a bunch of games for us and he's a talented guy."

Much of La Russa's postgame news conference was an argument with St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz. Earlier in the day, La Russa said he wouldn't speak to the newspaper during the three-game series because of a story that poked fun at the Cubs' history of losing.

"I have a right to state an opinion and when there's a cheap shot against the Cubs I don't want to be a part of it," La Russa said. "I want everybody to know that the St. Louis Cardinals and their manager have an absolute disregard for that."

Anthony Reyes (0-4) struck out five in the first three innings and didn't give up a hit. But the Cubs broke through for four extra-base hits in the fourth, including two-run homers by Ramirez and Pie, to take a 4-1 lead.

Before Friday, all 10 runs that Reyes had allowed in his first three starts came in the first two innings. In six innings against Chicago, he allowed four runs and four hits.

Yadier Molina hit a two-run homer with two outs in the seventh to chase Marquis and cut the deficit to one. It was his first long ball since his go-ahead, two-run homer in Game 7 of the NL championship series against the Mets.

Ryan Dempster got the last five outs for his fourth save in four chances and first since April 7. He escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the eighth, striking out Preston Wilson and getting Adam Kennedy on a groundout. Wilson broke his bat on the plate in disgust.

Dempster survived another scare in the ninth when pinch-hitter Scott Spiezio's drive down the right-field line with a runner on hooked just foul.

"It was more fair than I thought it was going to be," Dempster said. "Right away I thought he pulled it foul and I was watching it and I'm like, 'You've got to keep bending here or otherwise it's going to go around the pole."'

Piniella extended Dempster because he had three days' rest and because setup man Bobby Howry tweaked his back moving his barbecue grill off his patio.

Cesar Izturis added an RBI single in the ninth off Cardinals reliever Randy Flores.

Derrek Lee led off the fourth with a double when left fielder Chris Duncan barely missed a spectacular diving catch, the ball popping free when he landed. Ramirez followed with his fifth homer.

With two outs, Mark DeRosa doubled and scored on Pie's first career homer to straightaway center for a 4-1 lead.

The Cardinals had taken the lead in the third on Scott Rolen's two-out RBI single off the base of the left-field wall, missing a chance for more when Soriano fielded the carom perfectly and then made a nice throw to second.

Soriano saved a run in the second when he made a barehanded stop on Molina's single and threw out Jim Edmonds at the plate.

Notes:@ Soriano had an NL-leading 22 assists in his first season as an outfielder last year with the Nationals, third highest in franchise history. ... Kennedy has grounded into five double plays, among the league leaders and one more than Edmonds. ... The Cubs are 18-40 in St. Louis this decade. ... Cardinals RHP Kelvin Jimenez made his major league debut after his contract was purchased from Triple-A Memphis earlier in the day, allowing one hit in a scoreless eighth.


(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

[Jocephus]

you can also see some of the conference battle on espn.coms 360 thingy....

[Maclowery]

Did we seriously have 24 runners LOB last night? that can't be right.