Don’t expect him on Opening Day
Hello folks!
Winter is soon to be over, the St. Louis Cardinals will soon be in pursuit of another National League Central Division title and I couldn’t wait to get back to writing about baseball.
But just because I am in a hurry to resume full column activity, what is the rush to get the still-damaged Scott Rolen back at third base?
Rolen has been injured for much of the past two seasons, and his 2005 campaign ended with yet another shoulder surgery in August. The physician who performed the surgery pretty much said that his shoulder had to surgically be screwed back together – and that he would be ready to go as soon as Spring Training began.
Who is he kidding? And who are the Cardinals fooling?
Rolen is not ready. And the Cardinals know it. But the owners don’t want to admit that they’re paying $11.5 million a year for six years for a guy that has hit .275, with 75 RBI – over two seasons.
Post-Dispatch beat writer Joe Strauss said Monday that he sees Rolen throwing and swinging, but that he is not convinced the pop is still in his bat.
I’m not convinced Rolen can play 100 games this season.
So, what’s the rush?
The Cardinals have now sold pretty much every ticket for every game this season, so they no longer have to put the happy face on the Rolen rehabilitation.
You heard it here first: Rolen will not be a regular in the lineup until Memorial Day Weekend.
In fact, I predict the Cardinals will announce at some point in the next few weeks that Rolen will not be on the Opening Day roster.
Rolen played in 56 games in 2005. In the last two seasons, he played in just 198 of 324 games, which is just 61 percent of games played over two years.
Now, following extensive surgery, Cardinal Nation is supposed to believe that he will be fit as a fiddle for the entire 2006 season?
It doesn’t make sense to risk Rolen’s tender arm early in the season. The Cardinals pretty much won the division without him last year and advanced to the NL Championship Series. A healthy Rolen could not have handled Houston Astros flame-thrower Roy Oswalt either, so don’t fool yourself into thinking that he would have made a difference in the series.
“I can guarantee my best effort,” Rolen said on the Cardinals website.
“And my best effort today will be the same as my best effort back in 1998. Now, what numbers come of that, I don’t know. And it is not something that I’m afraid of, or that I’m going to lose sleep over.
“I’m going to give everything I have, and I think I have something to offer. I have my effort. I have my best foot, so to speak. And that’s it. That’s my expectation. That’s my guarantee.”
So the Cardinals have to live up to his guaranteed contract and all he can guarantee is his best effort.
Rolen might not be losing sleep over the possibility that he will never be the same, but that will change if his production numbers do not match his past performances before the back-to-back injury marred seasons.
Rather than starting off on the wrong foot – or wrong arm, if you will – the Cardinals and Rolen should come clean and tell Cardinal fans not to expect to see much of him until the season and the weather begins heating up in late May or early June.
