Yeah, enjoy this while it lasts because we will see the latter by the end of the season.
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Starting pitching is the only real concern right now. Which is a big damn concern.

But I'll be damned if they don't play like a "team" right now and don't do stupid shit to beat themselves. Haven't seen this since around 2013.
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And good grief the FSMW makeup and lighting crew need shit canned. Dan and Thompson looked like ****ing zombies doing that recap.
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we got tonight, who needs tomorrow? why don’t we stay?
/Bob Segar
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Guess what NL team has the fewest fewest strikeouts? It’s still a small sample size, but the shift in approach post Mabry has been productive.
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Yeah, I read an article on the Athletic that broke it down using stats. It was an impressive turnaround. Maybe because I'm a novice using these deep in the weeds stats but, it was an improvement is every way possible. And not just a couple of players but all the lineup.


And another article or maybe the same one..:-) base running. Complete turnaround. From being shit during the Matheny era to near the top of MLB.
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OMG the end of the Matheny era was ugly. From The Athletic

In the waning days of Matheny’s employment, the Cardinals were routinely shoved around at Busch. His final six home games were losses, with the Cardinals getting outscored 44-14.

With restless fans booing a lethargic, careless, mistake-prone team getting bullied by the last-place Reds, chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. and president of baseball operations John Mozeliak reached the boiling point.

After the Cardinals got humiliated by the Reds in two consecutive losses — 9-1, then 8-2 — Matheny was let go and replaced by bench coach Mike Shildt.
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Insight coming? The games were just last year.
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My worry right now is that I think the offense will cool somewhat and the SP may absolutely crash. There are some real alarming numbers under the hood here.

The Cardinals did some stuff shortly after LaRussa where they followed a year with unnaturally good string luck on offense with a year of unsustaintably high strand rates with their pitching staff.

The offense looks to have some staying power but the pitching isn't gonna keep stranding 80% of their runners, not when they struggle to generate strikeouts. Hudson, Wacha and Wainwright are borderline MLB starters right now based on their stuff, IMO. Mikolas has better stuff than his results but he just makes too many bad pitches; he's a poor man's Syndergaard right now in that he's just constantly making a bad pitch at a bad time.

The starting pitching to this point has been bad so many folks assume it's gonna improve. Folks - there's a decent chance the results get WORSE. There's a ton not to like about this starting staff.

Personally I think they need to work a lot harder on un-fucking Carlos Martinez and getting his ass in the rotation. They really need any version of the 2015-2017 Carlose Martinez in there.
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Fuckin dj comes in here and pisses in the corn flakes.
Sec
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I'll do that.

But I still like Mikolas. His velocity is down about a half tick (and velocity has stablized by this point, as a general rule) so that's probably the new norm, but he can pitch well at that velocity anyway.

His problem is that his bad pitches are just too damn bad. Now just a little more luck in that regard will help (folks eventually start missing even the bad pitches; Dotel pitched for 2 years at the back of his career throwing pitches too shitty to hit), but he also needs to do a better job of keeping his head in the game and not just firing cripple pitches.

Garrett Stephenson was a !@#$ing pro at that sort of thing. You don't want to be a rich man's Garrett Stephenson.

Flaherty's a goddamn stud, so no worries there. And occasionally Wacha will make a pitch where I just kinda drop my jaw. That amazing change will show up 3-4 times/game (or roughly 1/3 as often as he throws it). He threw some hellacious 2-seamer thing his last outing that just massacred poor Soto. But Wacha's just so friggen inconsistent that I'll never trust him.

And I don't understand what Austin Gomber needs to do to get a shot up here. Yes, he's lefthanded. No, he doesn't throw 98. That doesn't mean he's a LOOGY. That guy's arsenal is a LHSP through and through and every time you let him do that in AAA he does it well. Can you please give him a legitimate shot to stick up here - he can do the job.
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He’s right though. This is probably the best the offense can perform, and that probably won’t last all season. The pitching has been meh and other than Mikolas they are getting the results they should be.
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Agreed on Martinez, we need him as a starter. It would also help if someone finds the Alex Reyes voodoo doll and destroys it.
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They let Gomber’s spring dictate too much and they overvalued Hudson’s spring. Gomber has pitched pretty well at AAA so far, he has an excellent WHIP and still striking out a batter an inning. He probably get’s the start instead of Ponce if he hadn’t pitched the day before, at least I would hope so. He should be the first call up once Waino hits the wall, and he unfortunately I think he will. Wacha I can’t figure out, he looks hurt at times throwing a maxed out 91 mph fastball and the next batter he he throws a free and easy 95. His off speed stuff has been inconsistent as well.

Mikolas I think will be fine, his stuff is still good. He should eat more innings for us too as he he gets on track.
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Anyone we can trade for this summer? Bumgarner?
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