Read in Bernie's column..........

Boggs had blown 8 out of the 12 save opportunities in his big league career.

: Drums fingers together, eyes Trevor Rosenthal:

It's Boggs, what do you expect?

Technically, he's earned the right to be the next guy in line, so you just have to hope he only ****s up a few times before Motte comes back or they give the role to Rosenthal.

Beltran has become a liability, trade him for whatever they can get for him.

Lawls. Don't you think that's a bit premature after playing 2 games?

GEEEZZZ a little early for this......

He has a no trade clause. He's not going anywhere.

JFC

Beltran for Frenchy. Lets get it done boys. :)

I knew I'd get that response. I just think last year was a fluke for him, he didn't really produce with the Mets during his time there which is why I wasn't too crazy about getting him last year. Just have a feeling he will revert back to his old self. If I'm wrong i'll gladly eat crow.

If Beltran's healthy, he'll produce. His power numbers were depressed by the new ballpark in NY. It's done it to everyone.

He won't hit at the level he did over the first half, but it's reasonable to expect .280 and 25 homers from him if you can squeeze 130ish games out.

Beltran produced just fine today. Once he's healthy, he'll be fine.

Off to bed for a 7 am flight to St. Louis tomorrow in preparation to go to my fifth straight Opening Day! Go Cards!

:clap:

Keep on mauling, Matt.

You're playing for a big-league starting gig somewhere and for our new starting SS.

Never mind. I'm an idiot.

Boom goes the dynamite. What an ass whipping of Cain.

Big run day. Nice to see.

Nice that they pissed all over their ring ceremony, too.

Yeah we could have used some of those runs about 5 months ago though

that team over performed and just ran out of gas. Looks like we have a stronger team this year. It looks like we have a great bat(Adams) that can't even get on the field. Another potential All-Star(Taveras) to bring up if someone gets injured or tires later in the season. We have more pitching depth to take a hit if someone falters.

Yes, we still have depth at pitching even with Kelly doing his best "Manny Aybar" impression (looks great in the pen, kerosene on the field).

It's actually an Armando Benitez impression.

He's just throwing 96, 96, 97, 96, 96 and wondering why people are blasting them into the gaps.

He needs to mix his pitches badly.

About to start Opening Day festivities fellas for the 5th year in a row. Got tickets on right above the press boxes around home plate. Nice to be around Cardinals fans again. Go Cards and Go Michigan (so I can win a $400 bracket)!

Shin Soo Choo looks like a goddamn 3rd grader in CF today.

Choate, you lucky bastard.

:facepalm:

Wish I had a dollar for every time I've said, "****ing bullpen".

Nothing like getting beat throwing your 2nd or 3rd best pitch.

No command this is going to be 1 batter too many.

Gonna have to rely on the offense, which has pretty much consists of "hit the ball to Choo."

Why the **** are you swinging away 3-0 in a tie game when the pitcher can't find the ****ing plate?

Dumbass syndrome. I dont know about our hitting coach duo.

Granted, we've won a lot of games in the past two decades, but plate discipline and the bullpen blowing leads has been a consistent problem during that period.

Holliday had a decent AB, but Jay was flailing all over the place at junk, and Beltran gave away his AB swinging 3-0.

Dumb baseball.

Don't forget crappy base running.

Over/Under: Runs given up by Boggs (.5)

FFS. Holliday and Freese out of the game.

Looks like Boggs brought his A stuff to this tie game.

Walked the leadoff guy on 4 straight, and would have hit the next guy had he not bunted.

:facepalm:

That was a gift. Take advantage.

Another great example of shit you see all the time with this team. WTF?

Jesus Christ, Boggs. That would have been behind a RH hitter.

Nice bailout, Phillips.

Of course.

:facepalm:

I'm not sure what role Boggs and Salas have on this roster, other than blowing games.

Here comes the bases loaded walk after being ahead 0-2.

Called it.

Glad we have a bullpen full of Ricky Vaughns - throw hard, no ****ing control.

Nice defensive replacement, Matheny.

It's only a week into the season, and this team has turned me the **** off until later in the year. I can't watch this shit for 4 months until they decide to play inspired when their backs are against the wall in August.

LMAO

I hope Matheny is using up all his dumbass for the season in this 1 game because JFC there have been terrible decisions made.

Same dumbass decisions he made last year, same dumbass decisions TLR made for over a decade.

Those decisions aside, it's baffling to me that the bullpen has been an issue for this long.

What the ****? They were winning when I left the office. :banghead:

You say that like you haven't followed this team for 20 years.

Boggs is the kind of guy that would get a sabermetrician fired. You can look at his advanced metrics all you want, but the guy absolutely pisses down his leg in clutch moments.

He would have blown the Atlanta playoff last year if not for that bailout call, he faltered in an earlier attempt as closer, and he's crumpled both times this year. He's got 9th inning stuff and a 6th inning mentality.

The more he fails, the sooner Boggsringhausen gets shipped out.

Well, I think Motte is having an MRI on his elbow today, hopefully he'll be back & Boggs back to middle relief.

Probably promote Salas to closer.

:cuss:

:evil: His Time

Salas and Boggs need to be purged. Find another starter and move Lynnderella to the bullpen where three-innings-and-done act won't hurt us.

Salas doesn't exist in my mind. He comes in....game turned off.

Unfortunatley, this doesn't work if you've sat in the rain all day at Wrigley and then the one who sucks the penis comes in and promptly gives the game away in the 9th inning. :#

Boggs has blown 9 out of 13 save opportunities. Motte blew opening day a few years back and lost the job. Hope they are consistent.

This isn't rocket science. No matter how much "stuff" you got in your pitching bag of tricks, closing the 9th is a lot about whats between the ears. And Boggs just doesn't have the mental capacity or tenacity to handle closing.

Boggs sounds like the perfect Cubbie

Folks - who else is there? You want to give Joe "Grip it and rip it" Kelly the gig? Rosenthal's done absolutely nothing to earn it; he's hanging every breaker he throws and his fastball has shown less movement on it this year than last. Yesterday he couldn't find the plate with a flashlight and a map.

Mujica is the only other real alternative and I just don't love the idea of a guy that relies on movement, location and defense to generate outs. There's just too much Franklin in the boy for me to be excited about him taking the 9th.

Boggs probably is the best option we have with Motte down. Maybe Rosenthal can force the issue, but to this point he certainly hasn't. Maybe by 2014 Cleto will have forced himself into the conversation, but his command isn't where it needs to be to this point.

Matheny's left in a tough spot here; his closer went down late in the spring and his backup options are spinning their wheels.

Oh, and please stop using that BS blown save stat for a guy that was a setup man. Blown saves aren't really save opportunities when it's the setup guy getting them, that's mostly a blown hold. If you're going to start calling every blown hold a blown save (as the statistic does), then you might as well start calling every hold a save while you're at it. It's a silly mis-use of a straightforward stat. He blew 3 'saves' last year by giving up a single run in the 7th once and the 8th twice. Those aren't blown saves,they're blown holds. In 2011 he blew 4 saves, 2 in the 6th, 1 in the 7th and one single save blown in the 9th.

He's blown seven 'saves' in the last 2 years and only 1 of them was a true save situation. So you can either count those first 6 as blown saves and include every single hold he's secured, or count only the single truly blown save that he's had over the last 2 years.

Rosenthal should be given the oppertunity. He HAS shown the potential. We need him to step up, lets see if spending the winter with Carp set him up for success
Its a valid measurement to judge a potential closer. Just what would you use to evaluate a closer? There is no closer evaluation template to be applied to every potential closer.

No it isn't, not if you don't use it correctly.

He has literally zero chance to earn a save there so how the hell do you hold a blown hold against him? Especially if you don't give him credit for the holds he did secure?

Boggs hadn't blown a single save since May of 2011 - he just hadn't. I don't care if he incurred a BS, he was not in line for a save in any of those situations. And if you're going to start dinging him for blown saves when he blows a hold, you have to give him credit for being 3rd in major league baseball last year when he held 34.

So at that point, his success rate was 34 of 37; I'd say that's pretty damn outstanding.

This is nothing more than people wanting to install Rosenthal into the 9th without him having to earn it so they're mis-using the hell out of a stat to try to make their point. You say we need him to step up? What do you think we've asked him to do twice in the last 4 days? And both times he spit the bit in the 8th with a 1 run lead. Sounds like a ticket to a promotion to the 9th to me.

Oh, and if that's how you want to use the statistic, Trevor Rosenthal has blown every save opportunity he's ever had and is presently leading the league in blown saves.

Yeah, real good use of the statistic there, champ. You're seeing what you want to see and nothing else. Rosenthal's command is shot, his heat is straight, his breaking ball just flat sucks right now and he's blown the 2 high leverage situations he's been given this year. But yeah, lets ignore all that and manipulate the save stat in favor of just handing the kid the 9th.

Whats a good Cards message board?

Well ****. Motte hasn't been cleared to throw, surgery if insufficient improvement by May 1.

Might as well schedule it now; that elbow isn't going to heal itself if it hasn't by now.

With that, yeah - go ahead and put Rosenthal in. He's going to have some serious bumps and bruises along the way, but it's now time to find a long-term option and not a 1 month stop-gap solution. If we do anything in October, it won't be with Mitchell Boggs closing games.

I'd rather see Mujica be the short term closer than Rosenthal. Mujica has been the Cardinals most reliable reliever behind Motte since being acquired.

Matt Adams is a freakin' hitter, man.

Same issue me had with Craig.Can't get him in the lineup.:shake:

For Frazod, from Gould's chat..............

As if on cue! Trade Matt Holliday! He's not the player that they thought they were getting. Yeah, the Cardinals are real disappointed in this production since he arrived by train from New York City on July 24, 2009:

.307 average -- that ranks 12th in the majors since that day among players with at least 1,500 plate appearances. It's behind Joey Votto's .316. What is he thinking!

.389 on-base percentage -- that ranks seventh in baseball among players with 1,500 plate appearances since July 24, 2009. That's ahead of Ryan Braun .386 and some guy named Albert Pujols' .383.

.526 slugging percentage -- that ranks 14th in baseball among this group. But it puts him behind Pujols (.555), Giancarlo Stanton (.548) and Prince Fielder (.531). Well, I guess that's what $200 million gets you nowadays.

340 RBIs -- that ranks 11th. Yes, that's a product of the team he's on and where he hits in the lineup, but RBIs rarely lie in the sense that an unproductive hitter who is just Cream of Wheat in the clutch doesn't produce 100 RBIs a season.

91 HRs -- that ranks 23rd. Slacker. He only has as many as Adrian Gonzalez.

Glad to see you come around.:thumb:

Also from Gould's chat......

OK, so Boggs remains the best answer, what are his carrer numbers in the 8th and 9th?
by Mike 4:18 PM yesterday



I actually have those numbers at my fingertips, believe it or not:

Eighth Inning -- 112 games, 93 IP, 2.90 ERA, 3.18 K/BB
Ninth Inning -- 49 games, 41 1/3 IP, 5.01 ERA, 2.25 K/BB

Hard to ignore that gap.

*yawn*

When he starts posting numbers like that in the postseason instead of pissing down his worn out legs, get back to me.

Jay with a HR and Beltran hits a 2 run homer. 4-0 Cards in the start of the 6th. Winning this series would take some of the sting out of Monday's debacle.

Matt Adams is in beast mode. 2 run HR. 6-0 Cards in the 6th.

Hey, BRC - Still doubting Matt Adams?

Adams is a seriously talented big-league hitter.

Bats are alive today..

Ho Hum...0-2 double to drive in a run.

Just another day at the office for Big Lumber.