Cardinals Surge Ahead: Discussing Recent Wins and Strategies
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00:00Always good to get Rob Raines on the show from St. Louis sports page dot com STL sports
00:09page dot com.
00:10He covers the Cardinals and talks about the Cardinals.
00:14Highly unfortunate, Rob, last night for me as a pirate fan to watch the Cardinals tattoo
00:21Helen Keller, who's been having a terrific season for the Pirates, but the Cardinals
00:27meant business.
00:28They've been hot.
00:29They've won seven of 10.
00:31They're finally scoring some runs.
00:34What did you think of last night, Gorman and company lighting up Keller?
00:37Yeah, it was a big game, a big swing for for Gorman.
00:40He just had a horrible month of June at 141 for the month and it had some home runs early
00:44in the month, but then it really scuffled the last three weeks, striking out 40 something
00:48percent of his at bat.
00:49So if they could get him going along with some of the other guys who played well to
00:53this point and, you know, I get two big surprises and Burleson and Siani and then, of course,
00:58the win is played really well shortstop, but the the main two anchors are not all engulfments.
01:02Still haven't got to go in either, but they're a season high four games under over four games
01:06over 500 now and are playing much better.
01:08But thank you.
01:09Gorman's bat going just just help the cause all the way around 17 now for Gorman.
01:16What about tonight?
01:19They've got a Michaelis going against this young kid, Jared Jones from Whittier, California.
01:24He's got some nasty stuff, the kid, but they already beat Keller.
01:29Now they face the next tough one.
01:31And we all know what they got now in the three headed monster with skeins.
01:35What do you think of Michaelis tonight at PNC?
01:37You know, he had a bad game.
01:39His last start is one of the worst starts of his career.
01:41So he's trying to bounce back from that and they have not seen Jones, so it'll be a new
01:45experience for them.
01:46He did not pitch in the series in St. Louis earlier this year.
01:48They did see skeins in that series, but don't miss him.
01:52But Cardinals traditionally don't do real well against a guy they haven't seen before.
01:56So we'll see how that works out.
01:58But Michaelis is due for a rebound after a very bad start a week ago.
02:03So how do you like the lineup now?
02:06Wynn, Burleson, Contreras, Goldschmidt, then Donovan, Arenado, Crawford, Gorman and I think
02:12Siani.
02:13How do you like the way they're lining up every day and going out and playing?
02:20I think they're doing a lot better than they did earlier.
02:22I mean, as I say, Burleson has been a big surprise to them.
02:24He's got 13 home runs.
02:25And I don't think, you know, coming into the camp in spring training, if there had not
02:29been a couple of injuries to guys right as camp broke, I don't know that he would have
02:32made the ballclub.
02:33So, you know, he kind of was going to be the odd guy out after they signed Brandon Crawford
02:37as a free agent late.
02:38But he's made most of the opportunities he's had to play.
02:41And, you know, the lineup is going to be interesting because they're about three or four days away
02:44probably from getting Lars Neupahr back.
02:46He's on a rehab assignment, finishing it up in double-A Springfield next few days.
02:51I think you might see him by the weekend in D.C.
02:53And then they're probably two or three weeks away from getting Tommy Edmond able to play
02:57for the first time this year.
02:58So roster spots are going to get kind of tight here.
03:02So it's going to be interesting to see how they, how they, A, number one, fill up the
03:04roster, then B, how they divide up the playing time.
03:08So they've been playing well at Bush.
03:09Now they win in Pittsburgh, trying to do it again the next couple of nights and then go
03:14to a big four-game series in our nation's capital.
03:18They were a couple games, I think, are under 500 on the road.
03:22This is important for them, these two swings through Pittsburgh and D.C., no?
03:27Yes.
03:28Oh, definitely.
03:29They're in a situation, too, where you got, you know, they're here now in the stretch
03:31run before the all-star break.
03:32And then, you know, a couple weeks after that, they've got to make some decisions on what
03:35they're going to do as far as the training deadline is concerned.
03:37So, you know, how they play the next month is going to be a big factor in whether they
03:41go out and try to buy another starting pitcher, whether they try to, you know, bolster the
03:44bullpen, if they try to get another bat.
03:46I mean, or do they try to sell off a couple of the pieces that they don't see being fit
03:51here for the long term.
03:52So it's a critical period for them to try to not only get closer to the brewers, but
03:56at least solidify their spot in the wildcard race as they try to make, you know, decisions
04:00about what they're going to do at that deadline.
04:02And then they got the I-70 series brewing again with the Royals, and those are at Bush,
04:08those two games.
04:09Yeah, then they'll go to Kansas City in August.
04:12So yeah, those are always fun games, no matter what the standings say.
04:14But this year, you got the Royals playing a lot better than maybe people expected them
04:17to play, too.
04:18So that, you know, there's no really easy part of the schedule.
04:22One of the things about the Cardinals, which is interesting, and we've seen it time and
04:25time again, is they have a tendency to play to the level of the competition.
04:28You know, if they're playing a team like Miami or Colorado, they sometimes struggle more
04:32than if they're playing a team like, you know, Atlanta or the, you know, the Phillies.
04:36So it's interesting to see, and I don't really have an answer for that.
04:39But it's so some of these games that they would automatically say, well, they should
04:43win those games, are kind of struggle sometimes.
04:45So they still have, you know, even though the bats have been a little better lately,
04:48they still have, you know, a lot of games where they score two, three, four runs, and
04:52they still, for whatever reason, have a way to make even a game that should be a blowout
04:57game a tight game.
04:58You know, Hellsley's got, you know, 31 saves for a reason, because they play a lot of one
05:02and two run games.
05:03So they've got to try to figure out a way to win some games that aren't quite so nerve
05:07wracking.
05:08Sonny Grace, nice addition in St. Louis, no doubt.
05:12He's the only guy under three, right, with an ERA under.
05:15Yeah, he's pitched really well.
05:17You know, he didn't pitch as well in his last start, of course, but he had a perfect game
05:20into the seventh inning in his last game.
05:21I think the three of them that they signed, the free agent starters, Gray, Kyle Gibson
05:26and Lance Linn, have really given them exactly what they wanted over the course of this season
05:30when they got them in here last winter and bolstered the starting pitching combined with
05:34the bullpen being better.
05:35You know, I think the question now is the offense.
05:37I think the pitching is good enough, if maybe they go out and get one more starting pitcher
05:41that they can be in this race, either the wildcard race or the division race, but they've
05:45got to get, you know, we said it's a stay one of this season.
05:48The two big guys in the all-star players, the MVP caliber players, the potential Hall
05:52of Fame players in the cornerstones of this team is Nolan Arnauto and Paul Goldschmidt,
05:57and they really have not played well.
05:58Goldschmidt has gotten better lately, but it's been a struggle for Arnauto offensively.
06:02So it's going to be interesting to see what they do the rest of the way.
06:05Yeah, I'm surprised that we're talking about them almost at the bitter end here as opposed
06:10to the way we used to talk about them right from the jump as the best players on the Cardinals.
06:16That's not the case anymore.
06:17What about their back end, Helsley and Romero?
06:21How do you like their bullpen?
06:23I like the bullpen.
06:24I think that I would think they have a tendency to be a little bit overworked because they
06:28seem to run the same three or four guys out there every night.
06:31But that's again alluding to what we just talked about, because every game is such a
06:34close game.
06:35So they've done a good job, I think, of building Helsley.
06:38Perhaps they made a decision kind of coming into the season that he was not going to pitch
06:41more than one inning in a game, was not going to pitch more than in a situation when they
06:45had a chance to either tie a game in extra innings or had a chance to get the save.
06:49And they've kind of pretty much held true to that.
06:51And he's done well, even though he's handled the control of his fastball in the last month
06:55or so, which 102 miles an hour, you got to be able to know where that thing's going to
06:59be effective.
07:00So he's walked more guys than he would like to walk, but I still think he's been the most
07:03effective closer in the way that he's got a shot, realistic shot.
07:06I think it happened in the all-time record for most saves before the break.
07:10It's 38.
07:11He's at 31 now with 12 games to go and the Cardinals have 12 games left before the break.
07:16So it'll be interesting to see if we can pull that off.