2014 St. Louis Cardinals

[cardinalbird5]

1st place now and we are finally hitting for power.

Holliday, Peralta, Adams, and Wong have added some nice power. Also a decent pick up for Kottaras. He can be a platoon guy and a decent left handed hitter with some pop off the bench. He also sees as many pitches per PA as Matt Carpenter does, so he does have bring some patience and discipline.

[Bunselpower32]

They are just so streaky. They'll rattle off 5 in a row and then turn around and look completely helpless against teams. I realize that Matheny is a new manager and I'm not sounding the alarms to fire him. But he needs to take charge. With LaRussa, it was his team, and you knew it. They are deep enough and are a good enough team, they can plow through a lot of injuries, as they've shown. But they have a lack of leadership, Molina, even before the injury, was not filling this role like he used to, and no one has stepped in to fill the void left by Beltran.

I think Craig's shoulder is injured, because he isn't pulling the ball at all. A Scott Rolen type deal. He's the main guy they've counted on that hasn't come through.

[cardinalbird5]

I feel like our offense has been improving a lot, but we still rank 29th in runs.

We are middle of the pact in all other offensive stats like AVG, OBP, and OPS, but we just have problems getting the runs home.

Holliday is heating up and AJ should be a decent replacement for Molina (if he ever comes back).

I am actually more worried about our pitching now...mainly Miller and Martinez and a little bit about Kelly. I hope Wacha can come back soon.

[Stroehms]

I'm worried about the series against SD. We face 3 good pitchers and we already can't catch any breaks at the plate.


Also, I just read on mlbtraderumors that the Cardinals have inquired about both Tulowitski and Hamels.

[Stroehms]

Kelly and Craig to Boston for John Lackey. I like the move. Frees Oscar and stabilizes rotation