Pat Imig posted on June 20, 2012 08:47
Happy Humpday. Hope you're doing well. The Cardinals are not.
STORY-TIME WITH RICKEY AND HUNGO NEEDS TO STOP
When the Cardinals are playing like poo-poo, it's a lot easier to harp on the negatives. One of the biggest negatives lately has been the pairing of Rick Horton and Al Hrabosky. These two should not work together. Horton is not a play-by-play announcer. When he and Al are together, the idea of narrating the action on the field is a novel one. Fox Sports Midwest needs to pull the plug on this experiment before Cardinals fans go bonkers.
HOW DO YOU SPELL RELIEF
Yesterday, Bernie Miklasz brought to light a simple yet important difference between the Cardinals and Reds: the bullpen. Check out the following if you missed it:
* Really, all you need to do is look at each team's closer, and top LH reliever. Reds closer Aroldis Chapman has the top strikeout rate in baseball at 15.9 per nine innings. The Cardinals' Jason Motte, for all of those 98 mph fastballs, ranks 47th among NL relievers with a K rate of 8.81. Chapman has allowed one homer and his HR rate is the lowest in baseball at 0.26. Motte has been hammered for five homers and his HR rate, 1.42 per nine, ranks 88th in the NL among relievers.
* And on the LH side of things, Sean Marshall (Reds) has the 12th best strikeout rate among NL relievers at 11.22 per nine IP. Marshall's HR rate is 0.7 per nine innings, which ranks 47th among NL relievers. The Cardinals LH Marc Rzepczynski, has allowed 5 homers and has a HR rate of 1.82 per nine innings, that ranks 95th among NL relievers. Zep's K rate 6.57 per 9, which ranks 78th.
That's pretty damning and telling. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, Jason Motte is still in love with his fastball.
DEAR JASON MOTTE
Go ahead and watch video of Justin Verlander striking out Allen Craig in the 7th inning Tuesday with the bases loaded. See, what he did was throw several 100 MPH fastballs, then a curveball, then another 100 MPH fastball, then a slider that clocked in at 87 MPH. The result? A strike out. Keep this in mind going forward.
Thanks,
the Management.
AROUND STL
St. Louis Business Journal's 30 under 30 list.
Overrated/Underrated featuring all 32 teams. For the Rams, it's Quintin Mikell and Sam Bradford, repsectively.
From NFL.com, Steven Jackson and the unending cycle of futility. From the story:
The study -- which surfaced via ESPN.com -- broke down all running backs with at least 5,000 rushing yards and 7,500 yards from scrimmage in their careers. After narrowing the field, the site calculated the weighted average winning percentage of the teams they played on throughout their career.
In that group, Jackson has the lowest career winning percentage at .292
The fact that Jackson keeps a positive outlook and continues to produce says a lot about the man.
You can read more about this study and Jackson's resolve on ESPN.com.
You might have seen the news story Monday but Mike Tyson is on Broadway in his one-man show directed by Spike Lee. He is also a part of the WWE '13 video game, which you can witness here. As for Tyson, does he not see what's coming in this one-man show? Who needs a director for a one-man show that is essentially the one man's life story. Hopefully Spike Lee won't become his new Don King.
Ryan Leaf sentenced to 5 years in prison. One man Broadway play about Leaf coming in 2027.
Jason Marquis was released by the Twins earlier this year after posting an 8.47 ERA, then joined the Padres and shut down the Texas Rangers in this 3rd consecutive quality start.
NASA's Voyager I spacecraft is nearing the edge of the solar system: "The craft is now 11.1 billion miles from Earth, a distance that means radio signals from the craft require 16 hours and 38 minutes to reach the antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network."
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