MVN - Most Valuable Network

The game to judge the 2007 season by

If someone ever asks me what watching the 2007 Cardinals was like, I’m going to show them last night’s game. Buried early, a spirited comeback, coming up just short. Of course, to really approximate this season, which lurches along like a 16 year old trying to learn how to drive a stickshift, the Phillies should have scored 11 more runs in the 8th and 9th innings.

Branyan staring at strike 3 was a fitting end to the game, wasn’t it? The pitch was too close to take with the count 3-2 and the game on the line. He probably couldn’t have hit it for distance, it was in a good location; perhaps foul it off and get a reset? Left-handed hitters are supposed to feast on the low inside pitches; if you swing and miss, at least you swung and missed.

For more on last night’s game, see Josh’s post below.

As of today, all the gains they made in the second half have been given back. The Cardinals are now nine under overall and 1 under since the All-Star Break. And it may get much worse. With 13 games to go (based on my amateur-ish projection of the rotation), Wainwright and Looper will start 2 more games each. These are our best two pitchers and give us the best chance to win. Piniero, who remains a pleasant surprise, will also get 2 more starts. Ideally they will win all 6 of those starts; more realistically, they’ll win 3 of the 6 (I haven’t taken into account who will oppose them in those games). With the rest of the rotation filled out by someone from the Batting Practice Contingent (Thompson, Reyes, Maroth, KFW) and Mark Mulder (who gets a pass, although he’s been hit pretty hard, because he’s coming back off shoulder surgery), it’s entirely likely they could finish the season 73-89. That’s a spectacular collapse for a team that just 2 short weeks ago was 69-68, one game out, in a division ripe for the taking.

I’m curious to see what the worst record for a team that won the World Series the previous year is; I’ll do some research and post the results on Friday. If anyone wants to hazard a guess, leave it in the comments.

Man, what a tough season this has been to watch.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 18th, 2007 at 9:47 am and is filed under Cardinals 2007 rotation, 2007 Cardinals, Cardinals analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.