Game Thread #27 4/28/08 April 28

Probables: Todd Wellemeyer vs Bronson Arroyo @ 7PM.
Keep it going Todd. We need a win.

Matchup
The Official Site of The St. Louis Cardinals: News: Cards ready to host familiar faces
The umps
STLtoday - Cards Notebook: La Russa lauds umps

MSN schedule
FOX Sports on MSN - MLB - Schedules

Yahoo schedule
MLB - Scores & Schedule Monday April 28, 2008 - Yahoo! Sports

Standings.
The Official Site of Major League Baseball: Standings: Regular Season Standings
16-10 is not a bad record. One half game behind first place.

mattcrossman
SportingNews.com - Your expert source for MLB Baseball stats, scores, standings, blogs and fantasy news from MLB Baseball columnists
Cardinals don't have the talent to sustain hot start
There are few on it you would want for your team other than Albert Pujols.
Heck, there might be no one on it you could name other than Albert Pujols.

Additions and corrections are appreciated.

Heads up, folks. Two morning games
I wonder if those Parks serve scrambled eggs instead of french fries.
Springfield at Tulsa and Palm Beach at St. Lucie.

The Salt Lake City Bees are at Memphis Redbirds @ 7PM.
Memphis Redbirds: Home
Two articles.
Redbirds : Commercial Appeal
AM 560 Sports 56 WHBQ - The Voice of the Fan!

The Springfield Cardinals are at Tulsa Drillers @ 10AM.
Probables: Clayton Mortenson vs LH Xavier Cedeno.
Springfield Cardinals
JOCK 98.7 FM

The Palm Beach Cardinals are at St. Lucie Mets @ 9:30.
Palm Beach Cardinals: Home

The Lansing Lugnuts at Quad City River Bandits @ 7PM.
Quad Cities River Bandits: Home

MiLB team schedules
Minor League Baseball: Schedule: Schedule
Minor League Baseball: Multimedia: Gameday Audio

Off topic:
The Big Guys host the Reds.
Probables: Todd Wellemeyer vs Bronson Arroyo @ 7PM.
Please check Ewt's great recap of yesterday's win.

Cards Website - Home link
The Official Site of The St. Louis Cardinals: Homepage

FSN schedule
FOX Sports on MSN - MLB - Schedules

Additions and corrections are appreciated.

He another great veteran presence like Cliff Floyd? :duh:

What a joke!

renny

http://www.fanhome.com/forums/avatar...ine=1187396636

Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: along side the veteran presents `)
Posts: 1,569




Glad I finally dropped Delgado.
__________________
"We'll be back next year. We always are, aren't we?" -P Greg Maddux

I knew I would live to regret this statement.

With Chipper and Yuni in there, we would have had enough to get past the Mets - in spite of Smoltzie's aching shoulder. We jump started their offense and woke up a big cat.

Hoya recently commented on the new park.

I went last night for the first time. I'm underwhelmed. Can't hold a candle to Coors, Camden Yards, Petco, some of the other parks I've been to. I haven't been, but I understand the Pittsburgh and Detroit parks are also up there.

I understand now why they didn't do a retro old-style park. It wouldn't fit the location. Basically it's in an area of low-rise ugly industrial buildings that'll all be torn down. It doesn't have the natural advantages of Camden Yards or LoDo. More like the setting of the Giants' park -- a forgotten industrial zone. (But the Giants park makes beautiful use of the water; Nats park doesn't). Most of the new development mirrors the ballpark: lots of steel and glass.

Outside the ballpark is dull. Nothing much that says "baseball." Not very open to the street -- there's no street scene at all yet, but the bars, etc, will come. But even when they do, the park itself isn't very inviting and not well-integrated into the surrounding streets. Most traffic comes from the north/metro stop side, but that's centerfield. They should've made the public face of the park in centerfield then.

Inside reminds me of the new retractable domes, like the former BOB in Phoenix. Again, lots of steel. Or (and this isn't an insult) like one of the nicer new minor league parks blown up by 100%. What the minor league parks do to save costs -- exposed steel, minimalist form-follows-function stuff -- the Nats do for (expensive) style reasons. I don't really get it.

And it's really, really expensive. I had a seat in the first row right above the Nats bullpen (I figured there's always a lot of action in the pen given the state of the Nats starting pitching). 39 bucks. Yeah, the Cubs are considered "premium," but that's pretty steep.

Infield boxes between the dugouts are "sold out" all season, yet were about 3/4 empty. I understand this is normal. I guess lobbyists bought all the season tix and they don't use them or even bother to throw them back into the resale pool. I tried to find someone scalping good tix and ... weirdly (this has never happened to me before) was unable to do so. So the TV shots are of an empty background.

Weird concourses -- so much is shut off for the "club" stuff behind homeplate that you can't do a full circuit on anything other than on the bottom ring, and even that narrows a lot around homeplate. No microbrews, just crappy Miller stuff. Crappy undersized bar in CF. Most of all: no views at all. It's not right on the Anacostia River. I had wondered why not. Walking around before the game, I realized: the sewage treatment plant is on the river directly across the street from the park. Oh.

I left early (an oddity for me, since I'm a pretty hardcore "the game is over when it's over" fan) because there was no way on earth the Nats were going to come back from a 5-0 deficit after 6. Lucky I did: I saw the pics on the news of the mob waiting to get on metro after the game. No bars, etc, nearby to cushion the flow by absorbing some post-game traffic. Just a huge mass of people standing outside the metro station.

I will come home with a new appreciation for Coors ... and Camden, the first and the best of the old-is-new parks.

I'm wondering: what favorite parks do you folks have?

Following is the edited chat room session of Saturday, April 26, 2008. The guest was Mr. Chad Renning from the Media Relations Department of the Memphis Redbirds, the triple A farm club of the St Louis Cardinals. The chat on Saturday is part of a series of regularly scheduled chat sessions with members of the Memphis Redbirds organization. The chats will be held on Saturday’s at 10AM at FanHome.com

All of this is prior to Friday game at Iowa…

The Redbirds are in the middle of an eight-game road trip. They are currently 9-12.The team won its first series of the year this past week, taking 3 of 4 at Round Rock. They dropped the series opener to Iowa 3-2 last night (Thursday). Jason Motte gave up an RBI single in the 9th to lose it. Nick Stavinoha leads the offense in AVG (.365) and RBI (13). Joe Mather (back) came off the DL today, Gabe Johnson went on. Rico Washington came down from St. Louis and Casey Rowlett went down to Springfield. Rasmus has belted two homers on the current road trip.

The Redbirds come back home Monday night to play Salt Lake City (18-1). They are highlighted by Freddy Sandoval (.403/.436/.639), Matthew Brown (.393, 19 RBI, 6 homers) and Brandon Wood (7 HR’s). Nick Adenhart is 3-0 with a 1.17 ERA and Shane Loux is 4-0 with a 1.40 ERA. SLC leads the PCL in both team hitting and pitching (go figure, THEY ARE 18-1). Colorado Springs comes into town May 2nd. They are currently 8-11 and are led by Ian Stewart, who spent time up with Colorado and has 21 RBI to lead the PCL. The Sky Sox are third in the PCL in team batting, so we should see some offense during the home stand.

All games are at 7:05, except Wednesday April 30th is School Day (11:05) with tons of school age kids at the ballpark. Saturday’s game, May 3rd, is at 1:05 and Sunday May 4th is at 1:35. Following the game on Friday May 2nd is Scout Night Sleepover where group’s camp out on the AZP field.

You can get tickets at for all games on this home stand at the the Memphis Redbirds website or by calling (901) 721-6000. Hope to see you there!

Now, on to the Chat Session….

Mike Hobson Good morning Chad.

Chad Renning What’s up?

Chad Renning Redbirds got killed last night...not pretty, Hawksworth only lasted 2.1 and gave up 11 (runs).

Mike Hobson What’s up? Rough night at the park last night for both STL & Memphis. Izzy gives away a great performance by Looper and we won't even talk about the Hawk's performance last night at Iowa

Mike Hobson I don't know which is worse. Getting bombed as Hawksworth did or having your closer give it up in the 9th.

Coop I saw that Mather made an appearance

Chad Renning Yes...just came off the DL yesterday....Gabe Johnson went on (the DL)

Mike Hobson I saw that too (on Mather). I also noticed he came out early. Planned or did he re-injure himself?

Chad Renning I didn’t hear

Mike Hobson Does someone in your department make the road trips with the team? Or do you work strictly out of Memphis?

Chad Renning Steve Selby (Memphis radio announcer) is the only one from the media dept that goes on the road - no media guys in the PCL travel

Coop Tom Stocker (former radio announcer) was great doing that a long time. Steve is too. It's got to be difficult doing it all solo.

Mike Hobson You have a red-hot Salt Lake City coming in. 19-1 on the season after last night. Are you looking forward to that series? What's the rotation going up against them?

Chad Renning Yeah, a little worried, but should be exciting to see them....i guess they’ve got a couple studs...I think Brandon Wood is going to be good in the bigs

Mike Hobson Wood is currently batting .278/.329/.658 with 8 HR's, 6 2B's and 17 RBI's. But he's not the big gun so far. Matthew Brown is tearing up opposing pitchers. 6 HR's, 10 2B's & 3 triples. Batting .398/.430/.784.

Mike Hobson I think I would plan on giving Brown plenty of unintentional intentional walks in this series

Chad Renning yeah...I think everyone on their squad is swinging it...when you’re 19-1 it makes sense

Coop They may have fun with Wasdin (Saturday’s starter for Memphis)

Mike Hobson It's kind of scary running down the numbers on their stat sheet. They also have a former Cardinal playing the OF for them - Terry Evans. Evans was acquired by the Angels in the Jeff Weaver trade in 2006

Chad Renning Yeah, they've had fun with everyone

Chad Renning It's impressive what they are doing

Mike Hobson Are you expecting big crowds this week for that series. I know if I lived in the Memphis area, this would be one of the teams I would want to see.

Chad Renning Yeah, should be pretty good crowds...the only thing that might hurt is they’re all weekday games

Coop I'll be there Wednesday morning (11 AM?)

Chad Renning yeah...that might be a sellout...a bunch of school kids are coming out....pretty sweet field trip huh?

Mike Hobson That would be a "pretty sweet field trip" for the kids. I don't remember getting to do that back in the day when I was in school.

Coop I had to hide the transistor radio.

Mike Hobson Mark Mulder threw for Springfield last night. Probably his worse outing so far in his current rehab assignment. Any word yet on him coming to Memphis for a start? I would think him going against SLC would be a good tell on how much more work he needs to put in before he's ready to head back to STL

Chad Renning yeah, he wont throw against SLC...were hoping late in the home stand

Mike Hobson That's a shame. Would have been nice for Memphis to throw him, Thompson, Boggs & Parisi at them.

Chad Renning yeah...would have made for an even better series

Coop I'll be trying to figure out the rotation. I want to see Boggs.

Mike Hobson BTW - how was your trip to St Louis for the Giants series last weekend. I hope you got to see the Friday game, because Sat/Sun was not that fun to be at, except for the sunny weather. (Cards were shutout on Sat and scored 2 on Sun).

Chad Renning yeah...he'll (Boggs) throw against SLC....STL was fun.....didn’t make it for Friday, we had a game

ArRedbird Is Matt Pagnozzi still around Memphis? What role is he playing these days? Bullpen catcher? Bench coach?

Chad Renning he's caught 2 games....was on the DL the first couple weeks... he might play more because Gabe Johnson just went on the DL

Coop I kept wishing Pags was our catcher last year

ArRedbird Thanks for the answer. I've always liked the way Pagnozzi moves behind the plate and works with pitchers. Have you seen enough of Stavinoha to evaluate his OF defense? His arm? Running down deep flies, etc?

Chad Renning he's has trouble getting to some balls, he put on some weight from last year...his arm is good and the way he's been swinging it (2 more hits last night) they can put up with his average defense

ArRedbird Thanks. Didn't know he'd put on weight. I'd seen that his bat was coming to life.

Chad Renning yeah, he's close to 240 now

Mike Hobson Last year, Stav's dropped down to about 215 after an illness. He recently said he didn't feel comfortable at that weight and built himself back up to 240 where he feels comfortable as a playing weight

Chad Renning yeah...he said he wore down a bit last year, so he's hoping the extra weight helps through the season

ArRedbird Yikes. Guess that's his football weight. Question: The StL bull pen seems not to be at its best right now. Who in the Memphis pen is hot -- who's really throwing well?

Chad Renning Actually all the pen has been good...Flores has yet to give up a run, Worrell looks real good and Hugo threw well in his spot start

Chad Renning Perez has improved his control and Politte has thrown well too

ArRedbird Worrell is amazing, isn't he? You'd think he couldn't ever throw a strike with that motion of his, but he seems to get it done wherever he's pitched.

Chad Renning Yeah, was shocked the first time i saw him throw...got to be really tough on righty’s

Mike Hobson Chad - if you were shocked by Worrell's motion, wait till you get Mike Sillman back (currently on the DL). He also has a very unorthodox throwing motion.

Mike Hobson I also like Jason Motte - 18 K's in 10 innings so far. He may be the real sleeper down there.

ArRedbird I like Motte's numbers too. Is he developing a 2nd pitch at all?

Chad Renning Yeah, Motte is good too, his curve ball looks decent

ArRedbird Good to hear that Perez's control is improving. Thanks for the info on the bull pen pitchers!

Mike Hobson The past 2 seasons, the Memphis Redbirds have had the privilege of hosting the annual MLB Civil Rights game. With MLB hinting that they may move the game to other cities, such as Atlanta, has there been any word on whether or not Memphis will host next year’s game?

Chad Renning have not heard for sure either way, I'd hope it stays here....the bad weather this year kind of hurt the attendance, but it's really up to MLB

Mike Hobson My last Q before I head down to the park. I keep reading about Hoffpauir's lack of glove on defense. However, every time that I've seen him play, he's shown good range and always makes the glove. What have you observed about him? Personally, I think he got tagged early in his career with the no glove by someone and it's just continues to circulate on the 'net

Chad Renning Yeah, same here. I've been really impressed by his defense, there has yet to be a ball that I thought he should have got to and he didn’t

ArRedbird BleacherBum -- bring home a winner!

Chad Renning have fun

Coop Even with Wainwright, we need runs!

Mike Hobson I'm riding a 4 game home losing streak so I need a win today. Thought I had one last night (Friday) till Izzy gave up 3 in the 9th.

Coop Marlon Morgan (Redbirds beat writer) is doing well in the Commercial Appeal. Do you communicate with him much?

Chad Renning Yeah, he's been great to work with....good guy too

Coop Masalik (last year’s beat writer at the CA) went to the business section

Mike Hobson Thanks Chad for stopping by. It's very much appreciated. Bring us home some winners against SLC this week.

Chad Renning I’ll do my best, thanks for having me

ArRedbird Yes, thank you very much.

Coop Thanks a lot. See you next week. Maybe at Autozone

Chad Renning later all

Chad Renning Thanks again for having me


Stay tuned. The Cards board will be chatting with members of the Memphis Redbirds every Saturday at 10 AM throughout the 2008 season. Stop by and join in the fun!


Link to April 12 Chat Session

Links to previous chat sessions:

2007 Season:

– John Vuch
- John Vuch (followup questions)
– Cody Haerther
- Mike Lindskog
- Kyle McClellan
- Dave Chase
- David Kelly
- Steve Selby


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