St. Louis Cardinals fans are likely pleased to see the San Francisco Giants leave town after the visitors won three of four games in their just-completed series. Thursday evening’s game four was especially frustrating for St. Louis as several defensive plays undermined the MLB debut of starting pitcher Lance Lynn.
One of those questionable plays in the field during the Cardinals’ 12-7 loss involved outfielder Colby Rasmus as he seemed to pull back on a ball in the left-center gap in the top of the sixth. The door opened for the Giants to take the lead.
On the other hand, Rasmus had a night to remember with the bat as he hit his second career grand slam and tripled, driving in six runs.
On the visitors’ side, veteran Giants first baseman Aubrey Huff more than matched Rasmus as he collected four hits, including three home runs, and also plated six.
I asked researcher Tom Orf how often this feat of a six-RBI player on each club had occurred previously in Cardinals history. Back to at least 1920, the answer is just twice. Including Thursday, the Cardinals lost all three games.
On September 15, 1922, Hall of Fame second baseman Rogers Hornsby drove in six runs and was matched by six RBI from Philadelphia’s Butch Henline. The final score was 10-9, Phillies. It was the only other dual six-RBI game played in a regulation nine innings.
The other such contest is a most famous one. Commonly known as “The Sandberg Game,” the Cardinals faced the Cubs in Chicago on national television on June 23, 1984.
With the Cubs down 9-8 in the ninth inning, Chicago second baseman Ryne Sandberg hit a dramatic home run against another future Hall of Famer and former Cub, Bruce Sutter.
As the game went into extras, the Cards scored two in the top of the tenth. Once again, Sutter and Sandberg did battle in the bottom of the tenth, this time with a runner on base. Sandberg launched another home run to again tie the game. The Cubs won the battle in the 11th by the score of 12-11.
As you might expect, Sandberg made our six-RBI minimum. In fact, he plated seven that day. Almost lost in the Cubs’ heroics was Cardinals outfielder Willie McGee’s six RBI earlier that same afternoon.
Thursday night’s loss was tough, but it will quickly be forgotten, unlike “The Sandberg Game,” which is likely to live on forever.
Who knows? With the Cubs heading into Busch Stadium this coming weekend, maybe another such memorable skirmish is in the offing.
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Wonder if Hendry will make the trip to see his bro.
How come Lynn was given the loss? He gave up 5 and the Cards scored 7.
He was the pitcher of record at the time the Cardinals lost their final lead.
That rule used to bother me as well bling. The thought that a guy could go out losing 2-1 and even if the score ended up 22-21, as long as the pitcher who came on when his team was losing 2-1 and his team never tied the score up, he would still get the loss didn’t seem fair. But thats the rule.
Does it work the other way? If a pitcher leaves leading 2-1 and his team wins 5-4, the opponant never having tied it up or led, does he get the win?
The home team laid a gigantic egg during this series. Offense was weak, defense was laughable and the bullpen reverted to form. Lynn was a pleasant surprise, too bad his teammates knifed him in the back. Cleto performed about as I expected, control issues that got better as he pitched, like in the Springfield game. He needs to go back to the minors and work on his issues some more.
Brian Sabean is a horses’ patoot. I am starting to not have any sympathy at all for Buster Posey. He isn’t THAT good. Nobody is.
Well, now that I have that out of my system, GO CARDS!
It appeared to me that Cleto was trying to light up the radar gun that first inning, and was getting rocked. Tony seemed to be telling him to pitch not throw and the next inning he threw many more breaking pitches and subsequently looked much better.
The offense couldn’t keep up the torrid pace crdswmn. Berkman and Holliday were bound to cool off at some point. Jay and Craig have picked up the slack imo.
The misplay by Theriot was a tough mistake which led to 2 runs. The leadoff double by Sanchez that should have been caught by either Craig or Colby hurt but those were the only glaring blunders imo. The high hopper over third was just one of those things and the ball that got by Theriot was just one of those balls he’s not gonna get to. Brendan probably does but you play with what you got. and there was one other ball that I thought could have been caught was the ball down the line that Albert thought was foul and gave a half hearted effort on.
My actual thought is that only the Colby/Craig fly ball should have definitely been caught. I actually sent my first text to Colby this year about baseball last night and recommended him trying to catch everything that he could and stop with this i’m not gonna venture into your zone mentality that is obviously happening in that outfield. Hey I’m of the belief that if you call the ball and you are playing CF everyone else should get out of the way. If not, at this stage I’m for a few of them running all over each other and lets learn how to do this thing the hard way if we can’t figure it out the easy way. Hey if we break some bones and tear up some ligaments so be it.
At this point the miscue by Theriot is to be expected and Albert has made his share of blunders this year so he’s not playing gold glove caliber defense either so that probably would have been expecting too much of him to make that play. The team was constructed to be better offensively and I’m sure everyone expected shabby defense. Well voila, thats what we’ve got to live with.
The commenters on Fx Spts Mdwst were talking about how difficult it can be for a player when they reach the majors (on the subject since there were 2 making their debut)to be getting advice from different people and esp when people tell them to change their game when the way they have been playing as obviously gotten them this far. Also, I bet it is hard to be under scrutiny from so many sources, not to mention the fans.
Baseball it seems, like no other team sport, can really mess with a person’s head, it is more like golf really, worrying about mechanics and the decisions on how to make the next move (although in baseball those decisions must come rapid fire). I am obviously not as knowledgeable as the posters on this site, so I base my critique as a fan on how hard a player seems to be trying. What is frustrating to me is when a player like Albert doesn’t try to run out a throw to first or keeps making the same mistakes. Although I bet Albert justifies slow running an obvious out to not wanting to pull a hamstring or get injured.
RC, rarely do I agree with everything you say, but this is one of those times.
I agree too. RC is more objective than me, seeing as he is not a Cardinals fan.
Objective, but not impartial.
Well I don’t have a problem when I watch a game making judgements based on players abilities verses making them based on my love for the team. Thats something many fans can’t separate.
True I’m not a cardinal fan but truthfully I don’t pull against them. I have enjoyed watching some of the games this year as the cardinals have played the game in a manner which is actually fun to watch.
If I remember correctly, you base your fandom on the quality of the team’s hotdogs at their ballpark correct?
KBM, Well I do recognize a mighty fine hot dog when I sink my teeth into one. And if you remember my hot dog grade for those in St. Louis is at least on a scale of 1-10, one being bad and 10 being the best, ….at least a negative 5. There needs to be a lower than last place ranking for that pitiful hot dog. And if you remember that you do remember that Wrigley has numero uno…..and by a large margin.
So I don’t totally gauge my fandom on hot dog quality cause if I did I’d have St. Louis right at the bottom.
Fair enough. I’ve never been to Wrigley, but there is a guy here in town that a Nathan’s hot dogs (all beef) stand and he makes a mean Chicago Dog (one of my favs). I always go by his usual set-up spot every day at lunch to see if he is there selling dogs. I never get tired of a good hot dog (or especially bratwurst) probably my German heritage. I hope my liking of Chicago Dogs doesn’t make me an eggs benedict arnold.
I always get a dog with my third beer. It tastes fine.
The dogs at Wrigley are great. Milwaukee too.
That was not a shot at you BTW. Nothing wrong with not being a Cardinals fan.
Sabean overplayed his hand and ended up causing a tremendous backlash. Rookie mistake from a veteran GM.
Do you think he will be pressured to apologize?
I doubt it, though he may need to say something to tone down the death threat idiots.
That does suck for Lynn, he had a great outing and got a much deserved standing O, he didn’t deserve the loss though. Too bad our other pitching and D made the Giant’s struggling offense look top caliber. We may have helped them end thier slump. Great hitting last night made it an exciting game, clutch hitting by Colby and DD again, even Albert had a couple of good hits despite a few infield grounders that became outs. Cleto’s jaw has got to be sore today as hard as he was chomping his gum (he looked nervous), but hopefully he will focus on what he was doing right the second inning he pitched and not on the two homer’s and two walks he issued the first.
Matt Carpenter and Hamilton coming up? Will we see the “other” Carp at 3B tonight?
My guess is “yes”.
Descalso is starting at 3B.
Theriot, SS
Jay, LF
Pujols, 1B
Berkman, RF
Rasmus, Cf
Molina, C
Schumaker, 2B
Descalso, 3B
Garcia, P
Guh. I want to see Carpenter start. Let Descalso play 2B.
Somebody will need to head to Memphis, Descalso or Greene.
Kozma and Cleto have been sent down.
If MCarp sticks for a while, I wonder if DD will get any time at SS or 2B.
Albert might benefit from a regular day off like Yadi has.
I was surprised Jeff Gordon openly argued for finding a replacement for Theriot, describing his defense as sub-MLB. And he suggests Craig will be the second baseman. (Not Skip).
The beat guys are normally pretty carefull not to stir something up, especially by being criticle of Tony/Mo guys.
In talking about Bartlet, he says light offense would be acceptable, but in dismissing Kozma he says he’s not an offensive difference maker. OK.
Link to Gordon article.
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/jeff-gordon/article_5a199ba6-8de9-11e0-b8da-0019bb30f31a.html
With Kozma back Memphis now has 3 infielders on the roster instead of two. Must be a relief.
Garcia looks as good as ever.
Albert is close to being locked in.
Good prophesy LB
I got to ask blingboy. Were you serious with this question? “How come Lynn was given the loss? He gave up 5 and the Cards scored 7.”
Yah. Since then one of my sons reminded me that I explained the rule to him years ago. I guess its one of those things I used to know.
He also told me that I explained the rule about how a relief pitcher could be officially credited with a shutout, but darned if I remember that either.
I will give you a pass on this as you seem very knowledgeable. It just seemed to me to be an easy rule to comprehend that I wondered about you. But you came right back with an explanation and I, like most, appreciate that. Thanks blingboy.
I agree there’s nothing complicated about it.
Having stopped paying attention to such arbitrary numbers as pitcher wins and losses some time ago, I had forgotten that quirk as well, bb.
Good to see Jaime cruising.
There’s no arguing with results. I wondered if the extra day off would help or if throwing off his schedule would hurt. Let’s hope Lohse does well tomorrow.
A non-Cubs item. I notice Chapman is still sitting around at AAA several days after being eligible to come off the DL. He hasn’t pitched since May 29 when he got hit around and was very wild in 1+ innings (2 WP, lots of balls). I take it the Reds don’t know what to do. Chapman is surely enjoying sitting around being rich.
Its great that the Reds have fallen on hard times, and the Cubs too (3 1/2 back . . . . of the Pirates. kkkkk). Not wishing bad on anyone, but it would be nice if the Brewers implode somehow.
I have to give Tony credit, he’s running a chinese fire drill and making it work.
A friend of a friend gave me a ticket to tomorrow’s game. Get to see Carpenter pitch for the first time live.
Awesome! Hope it’s not too hot. It’ll be fun regardless.
I’m setting under an overhang which will help with the heat.
Sitting, not setting.
Big win over the Cubs today! Albert showed why we need him to hit 3rd and play every game at least until Matt comes back.Samardzija had Albert reaching but he stayed back long enough to hit it into the bull pen in left center field.Albert seems to be feeling more comfortable at the plate and is just reacting rather than over thinking. That was his 9th career walk off home run.
Albert is fixing to blow up the joint is my guess. Good to see to by the way. I expect to see Albert carry the cardinals like he has been doing these past 10 years, and subsequently start carrying my fantasy team.
Good luck tomorrow crdswmn, it was hot as hell down there today. We took the train down so we hit the frosty beverages pretty hard without worrying about a designated driver. Had a hot dog, no complaints.
Lohse really hit a wall in the sixth. He probably doesn’t like being demoted to 5th spot in the rotation. Or maybe it was the heat. Probably should have come out a bit sooner, but Tony was in the shade.
On both O and D MCarp looked good at times and not so good at times. Dan is probably a better 3rd baseman. I’d like to see what MCarp does if he gets some fairly regular playing time.
It was all Albert all the time, and the pen. With a bit of help from Fit Elvis. I hope Bird is right about Albert coming around. The already good O would be smokin, and then Matt comes back. Looks like we’ll need it all to shake the Brewers.
Agreed on most accounts, bb. It was a great game, nonetheless!
I’m hoping sitting under the overhang will make it a little less hot. I sat in this same area last year but it was at the end of the season and not hot.
Maybe I will get luck and Zambono will have one of his tantrums.
Yesterday the areas under the overhang were like an oven instead of a broiler like in the sun.
Maybe Carlos will snap after we go back to back to back.
A quik look at Cards stories and I don’t see anything about McClellan. He’s had the MRI by now, so the Cards know the damage. I’m assuming no news isn’t good news. My guess is torn labrum (cartilidge), surgery, done. Hope I’m wrong.