As the St. Louis Cardinals reach the halfway mark of the season, there is one thing we have learned about them – it is going to take a while to figure out just who the St. Louis Cardinals of 2010 are.
In a season that started with so much promise, new faces and everyone fairly healthy, there were also some pleasant surprises; like the emergence of Jamie Garcia, a stable bull pen and David Freese manning the third base position with favorable results.
The Cardinals had little challenge from the NL Central division foes at the outset. The Cubs were the Cubs, Cincinnati had a lot of questions, and Milwaukee had plenty of hitting and no pitching. Houston was rebuilding and Pittsburgh was rebuilding again. All was well – at least we thought.
Since the start of the season, the Cardinals have seen two of their starting pitchers go down with injuries; one of which required surgery and the other rehab. Neither has pitched since May.
David Freese was in a slump for the month of June until he suffered an ankle injury that sent him to the disabled list along with right fielder Ryan Ludwick – who suffered a calf injury.
Throw in the fact that the defense has been suspect on the infield, the timely hitting has been untimely at best as the big guns in what was supposed to be a potent offense have been lacking.
Other than that, things have been just fine. I should mention that Cincinnati has found their way and will be in this thing longer than anyone may have thought at the start of the season.
The Cardinals tried to stop the bleeding by trying to revive the career of Jeff Suppan, a 2006 World Series contributor who went for greener pastures to Milwaukee for $42 million over four years.
In a little over three seasons, the Brewers came to the conclusion that Suppan was a bad investment. They cut their losses and released him. The Cardinals signed him with the hopes that he could be fixed and that he would eat up some innings and not tax the bullpen. Getting to the fifth inning has been a challenge for Suppan and the jury is still out on this experiment.
The other spot in the rotation was thrown up for grabs to be fought for by young players who were supposed to have promise in the organization. if this will actually work is still in question on.
In short, the pitching has some questions for the time being until Brad Penny can come back and Kyle Lohse can stay healthy enough to make a contribution.
Now to the offense.
The two players that got off to tough starts were middle infielders Brendan Ryan and Skip Schumaker.
Lets start with Schumaker. Skip was a career .300 hitter before this season and certainly reliable, but something was missing from spring training until recently. To his credit, he has battled and there are signs that he is coming out if it.
For Brendan Ryan it has been a challenge at the plate from day one.
Ryan has teetered around the .200 mark for most of the season. He also took his offensive woes to the field with him whereas he had gone to being the best shortstop since Ozzie to being as erratic as anyone who has played the position in recent memory.
It has been an adventure to say the least.
As for the big bats in the offense, the offseason signing of Matt Holliday has not gone according to plan as he has struggled in key situations most of the season. There was a brief time in June when he was as hot at the plate as anybody in baseball. It only lasted a week.
He has been moved around in the batting order to give him comfort and the chance to do what they brought him here for and that was to protect Albert Pujols in the order.
Instead, it was Albert protecting him at times. Holliday even heard the boo birds from the hometowners for a couple of rally killing at bats.
As for Albert, to say he is having an off-year would be unfair but accurate when your look at his body of work leading up to this season.
It is nothing to worry about though. Albert will get his and he will once again be in the hunt for the Most Valuable Player award, although I am sure he would rather be mentioned as being on another World Series team.
Now that we know what the problems are that have beset the Cardinals, the question becomes what can we expect in the second half of the season?
This team cannot win if they have the injury bug bite them in the manner that they have been dealing with. Neither could any other team that would think they were in contention.
Even when the injured players return they will have to be as good, and in some cases better than they were before they were hurt.
As for Ryan and Schumaker, the leash will be shorter for Ryan should he not get better soon.
If recent call up Tyler Greene can put on any sort of run at shortstop, then Ryan’s playing time could be reduced. Brendan Ryan has too much talent to give up on so soon, but this is a team that is not building for the future. They are playing for now. And if one cannot carry their weight then changes will be made.
In Schumaker’s case, he continues to get to the point that he can be a plus for the second half.
While there are others that have been somewhat inconsistent, he is important to this team because of the amount of ground balls the pitching staff serves up. It has to be good up the middle – catcher and centerfielder included – as they have played to the level they would like.
There is a lot of hope for the second half of the season for the Cardinals.
They have been built to win now. Most of the parts are there, so there is no need to run out and mortgage the farm on a fire sale player who you think is going to get you over the top.
They are already paying a lot guys to do that already. Wait and see is what should be prescribed here. The division is still theirs to loose. A healthy team is what it will take. Anything less, and there may be a problem that cannot be fixed on the spot.
