Play ball!

Did you see he's getting a card?
https://www.mlb.com/news/beekeeper-topps-baseball-card

The Jays are off today. That means they will score one less run than yesterday.

Two teams have scored fewer runs per game than the Jays: the White Sox and the Athletics. Things are not going well when you get lumped in with those teams. THe Cards are just above the Jays.

https://www.teamrankings.com/mlb/stat/runs-per-game?date=2024-05-02

onebigfish wrote:

Did you see he's getting a card?
https://www.mlb.com/news/beekeeper-topps-baseball-card

I think it's neat.

The Cardinals are sooooo pathetic!!!! Lost 2 out of 3 to the White Sox this weekend. The White Sox!!!!!! Coming into this series in St. Louis the Sox had won a grand total of ONE road game all season. Thanks the the Cards' worse than anemic offense now the Sox have 3 road wins. Lost 5-1 today when STL managed all of 4 hits.

That's an OUCH, for sure. I was wondering how the WSox got above .200 for their record.

The Jays scored the most runs ( they've scored since April 6. They lost 11-8. They blew a 6-2 lead. They have lost the last 4 series. The next 3 series are against Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Minnesota. I don't see their fortunes changing any. The bullpen went from a strength to actually TERRIBLE. They can hold a lead as well as a sieve holds water. I'm losing track of how many times a starter has gone 6 or 7 innings and gave up 1 or 2 runs, only to have the bullpen come in and give the game away. To make things more sad, even the Athletics have a better record -- with about a quarter of the talent and payroll.

That's what happened to us yesterday too. 1-1 tie going into the 7th. Nice bullpen start. Then they brought in "Gopher Ball" Gallegos and before you know it it's 5-1. Gallegos has an ERA over 12. It's a bad combination when you can't hit and don't get good bullpen help.

It sure is! It's sad when you think if your team gives up more than 3 runs the game's over.

The Jays are off today so the bullpen will have to wait a day to blow another lead.

BTW the was supposed to be an "8" in brackets.

Cards lost again last night. Trailed 3-0 in the 6th but rallied to actually score 3 runs in a single inning
Of course they turned around and gave up a homer in the 7th and lost 4-3. You should hear the local sportscasters. We're just not used to a year+ of this kind of play from the Cardinals.

Yeah, I don't remember them being bad often or for very long.

Have you ever heard part of the broadcast of a college baseball game? Today on MLB Network they're carrying the A's vs Rangers game and it's the A's feed. It sounds EXACTLY like the announcing on a college broadcast. Like young announcers who aren't really comfortable with what they're doing.

I have not. Do they have guest announcers?

I tuned in to the Jays/Phillies game and it was the 3rd inning and the Jays were losing 3-0. I had supper and checked in and it was the 5th and 8-0. I'm not going to bother watching. Not only are the Jays bad, they are also boring.

Cardinals scored 3 in the first but then in the 2nd, Contreras took a swing off his forearm.  Not a backswing, Contreras was called for catcher's interference because he was reaching for the ball and the batter took a full swing and clipped the top of his forearm.  They just came back with the report that it's a fractured forearm.  Geez, he's been the only consistent hitter this season; he leads in all offensive categories.

EDIT: And to top it off, Mikolas couldn't hold the 3 run lead and Cards lost 7-5. Man do the Cardinals ever suck.

And the Cardinal losses just continue to pile up. Last night even Sonny Gray got lit up. And as usual the offense could only manage 1 run. That's 5 losses in a row.

There's a part of me that hopes this continues all year again so that ownership finally decides to tear everything down to the studs and rebuild. Fire the entire coaching staff, trade whoever you can get decent prospects for and start over. It's like the old Casey Stengel quote on Ralph Kiner, "We finished last with you, we can finish last without you."

That's a good quote; I like that. It makes a lot of sense, too. Flip some players for some guys you can build a team around .

I looked it up. I thought it was Casey Stengel who said that but apparently it was Branch Rickey. Either way, you're right, there's a lot of truth in that philosophy.

I think both our teams will need to consider that if they don't turn things around quickly.

The NHL playoffs are in the second round. Just like after the baseball season, managers (head coaches in hockey) often get relieved of their duties. This even happens during the playoffs as well, like when a team loses around when they were expected to go farther. There have been 11 head coaches fired and one retired so far.

Lost 11-2 tonight. I mean these games aren't even competitive. I watched about 20 minutes then switched to WWE Smackdown. Six losses in a row. MLB Now was talking to the MLB Cardinals beat writer and he said if the Cardinals want to become sellers they might have a whole aisle of players for shopping teams. Starting with Goldschmidt and Ryan Helsley.

Well the Cardinals threatened to break their losing streak tonight but leading 3-1 I had faith that we could still screw it up and of course we did. Andrew Kittredge, who was supposed to be one the "big bullpen pieces" that we got from Tampa gave up a 3 run homer in the 7th and the Cards lost 5-3. That's 7 in a row. Let's see if we can lose all 4 in Milwaukee tomorrow. I'm sure we can because I don't even have any idea who the pitcher is. Not that it matters.

Great is thy faith! Is Cardinals Nation getting fed up yet? I can't believe they are in last place in their division with a winning percentage of .385! And they are already 9 games back. They Jays are .462 and 8.5 back.

The Jays lost 3-1 Friday night and wasted an 8-inning, 4-hit start by Kikuchi. Then they started off today by going down 7-1 by they 3rd inning. I switched it off and went to work on my boat and found out later that they won 10-8. That sounds like how they used to play. I'm sure they are done scoring for the next few games.

Cardinal Nation has started booing when the team does stupid stuff.  The local sports guy had an editorial earlier this weekend talking about the irate fans is better for the team than the alternative - apathy.  Apathy has already set in for me because I barely even watch this team anymore.  The past couple of years they've done too much dumpster diving (with both players AND coaching staff) and promoted too many minor league guys too fast.  We've already sent Jordan Montgomery and Victor Scott II back to Memphis. They also gave starting jobs to guys who should be bench players. Dylan Carlson and Lars Nootbaar are NOT everyday players. I think ownership just figured they could pack Busch Stadium regardless of the on-field product and I think they're about to find out that assumption was in error.

Lower attendance and merchandise sales will have the most effect.

As I predicted, the Jays scored 1 run on 2 hits and lost 5-1. Manoah pitched 7, have up 3 unearned and threw only 78 pitchers. He deserved better. So do the fans.

It's amazing how often that happens; pile up a bunch of runs in one game then struggle to score at all for the next couple of days.

Just watched the Cardinals finally snap their losing streak and beat Milwaukee 4-3. They've now played 40 games and this was only the 15th time they've scored more than 3 runs.

Saturday I was watching the UFL game featuring the St Louis Battlehawks. Late in the game the QB hurt his ankle when he was tackled. In the UFL some players and coaches wear mics and as the QB came off the field after the play he said he thought his ankle was broken. The backup QB came in and played for a few plays until they retaped the starting QB's ankle and he came back in.

Anyway, tonight the local sports gave an update (not a broken ankle but he's questionable for the next game) and something occurred to me. Is baseball the only team sport where a player who has been removed from a game can't return later? Football, basketball, hockey all let teams sub players in and out. Not sure about soccer but I think players can come and go there too. Off the top of my head I can't think of another team sport where you can pull a player then put him back in later.

I've never heard of the UFL before, but
yeah, I think it is the only major team sport like that. In hockey, football, and basketball, players are cycling on and off the bench. A player can get injured and come back several plays later in the case of football, or, in hockey, he might go for stitches and then come back.

I think it of all of them, hockey players are the toughest, followed by football players. I've seen hockey players take a puck to the face, loose a tooth and get a bunch of stitches, and then come back after getting patched up.

The Jays gave up only 2 runs tonight so they beat the Orioles 3-2 in 10 innings. I think 2 runs seems to be the max they can give up and still have a chance on most nights. Seeing as they won tonight, they will lose there next 2 games in the series. They have not won a series since playing the Padres on April 19 to 21.