While spring marks are inherently made to be forgotten, the St. Louis Cardinals have been very consistent over the Tony La Russa years. Since the manager’s arrival in 1996, the club has posted just two sub-.500 springs – in 2003 and 1998.
The Cardinals went on to miss the post-season both years.
Following Saturday’s bottom-of-the-ninth loss to the Marlins, St. Louis’ 2011 spring record dropped to 13-14, only tenth-best of the 15 Grapefruit League teams. Three Florida games remain, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday – the latter with an asterisk.
By Tuesday, the major leaguers will have headed north for an evening exhibition with their Double-A club in Springfield, MO. The “major league” club also has a Tuesday afternoon game scheduled in Jupiter that seems destined to be staffed by minor leaguers.
Yet, the outcome of that game may be the difference-maker in the 2011 Cardinals having a winning spring record.
The spring and regular season won-loss tallies over the La Russa years follow. Over that time, the Cardinals have played slightly better in Florida than during the regular season, .556 to .543.
St. Louis Cardinals spring and regular season records, 1996 through March 26, 2011
| Spring | Season | |||||||||||
| Year | FL wins | FL losses | Ties | Pct. | FL rank | NLC rank | NLC rank | Pct | Reg wins | Reg losses | PS Result | |
| 2011* | 13 | 14 | 1 | 0.481 | 10 | 3 | TBD | |||||
| 2010 | 15 | 14 | 0 | 0.517 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 0.531 | 86 | 76 | ||
| 2009 | 19 | 12 | 0 | 0.613 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0.562 | 91 | 71 | LDS L | |
| 2008 | 17 | 10 | 2 | 0.630 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 0.531 | 86 | 76 | ||
| 2007 | 16 | 10 | 4 | 0.615 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 0.481 | 78 | 84 | ||
| 2006 | 15 | 14 | 1 | 0.517 | T8 | 3 | 1 | 0.516 | 83 | 78 | WS W | |
| 2005 | 15 | 11 | 2 | 0.577 | T3 | 1 | 1 | 0.617 | 100 | 62 | LCS L | |
| 2004 | 17 | 12 | 1 | 0.586 | T4 | 2 | 1 | 0.648 | 105 | 57 | WS L | |
| 2003 | 12 | 15 | 2 | 0.444 | 14 | 4 | 3 | 0.525 | 85 | 77 | ||
| 2002 | 17 | 10 | 3 | 0.630 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0.599 | 97 | 65 | LCS L | |
| 2001 | 17 | 15 | 0 | 0.531 | 6 | 2 | T1 | 0.574 | 93 | 69 | LDS L | |
| 2000 | 17 | 11 | 0 | 0.607 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0.586 | 95 | 67 | LCS L | |
| 1999 | 16 | 13 | 1 | 0.552 | T4 | 1 | 4 | 0.466 | 75 | 86 | ||
| 1998 | 12 | 16 | 1 | 0.429 | 12 | 3 | 3 | 0.512 | 83 | 79 | ||
| 1997 | 21 | 11 | 0 | 0.656 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 0.451 | 73 | 89 | ||
| 1996 | 15 | 15 | 0 | 0.500 | T8 | 2 | 1 | 0.543 | 88 | 74 | LCS L | |
| Total | 254 | 203 | 0.556 | 0.543 | 1318 | 1110 |
* three games remaining
3/29 Update: On Tuesday, St. Louis absorbed their seventh loss to Florida in eight spring tries and concluded spring training with a 14-16-1 record.
Follow me on Twitter.
Follow The Cardinal Nation Blog on Facebook.
Maybe they will snap out of it. Bet TLR isn’t happy. Berkman may be a great clubhouse guy but you don’t play games in the clubhouse. He needs to start earning his $8M. I never had any expectations from Theriot, no surprise how I feel about that acquisition. Brendan Ryan isn’t lighting a fire at the plate for the Mariners (.200) but he is better than Theriot (.172). We are going to miss Brendan’s glove big time.
Theriot has led off the game with a strike out two games in a row, the two I have seen so far. Also, in his second AB he swung at the first pitch, meekly grounding to short. Not at all what he is supposed to be doing, working on being patient and getting on base. One might also mention his error, on a routine throwing play.
Berkman is swatting at the ball, by no means driving it. The ball just dies off his bat.
Prior to today, Theriot had only three strikeouts all spring (in 54 at-bats). He had also almost as many walks, eight, as hits, ten. I can’t tell how many pitches he has been seeing.
18 for 54 would be a .333 OBP which is better than I had thought. It is also an improvement over Brendan’s OBP last year.
Walks are not at-bats. It is 18 in 63 plate appearances or an OBP of .286.
Just noticed that Boston is 12-19 in pre-season. I wonder how restless their fan base is.
Dunno. A quick look at the spring nums indicates both hitting and pitching are in bottom half of the AL. Youk, Beckett, Papelbon among those with rough springs. ERA comparable to last spring but team batting average over 30 points lower.