Tag Archives: Ryan Theriot

Five Years Ago Today: Nothing Better Than A Cubbie Sweep

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NOTE: Five years ago was a much better time baseball-wise, wasn’t it? We weren’t subjected to daily gushings by the national sports media over THE CUBS!!!!! and so many of those friends and coworkers who now claim to be die-hard lifelong CUBS!!!!! fans were … well, just not paying attention to baseball, I guess. And Joe Maddon was the guy who managed the Rays. Oh, and the Cardinals were doing things like sweeping the CUBS!!!! — including two straight games, on June 4, 2011, and June 5, 2011, in Albert Pujols walk-off fashion. And Carlos Zambrano was getting mad about it. Plus Ryan Theriot — ahem, now Two-Time World Series Champion Ryan Theriot — was doing productive things as a Cardinal. Ah, those were the days … Enjoy this post from Miranda and relive the memories. To see the original post and its comments, click here. 

There is nothing better than a Cardinals win. But if there is anything better, it’s a Cardinals win over the Cubbies. The cherry on top is that Sunday’s Cardinals win over the Cubs meant that it was a SWEEP!

And how sweep it was!

The win Sunday came just as it did Saturday with a walk-off blast from Albert Pujols. Here is Sunday’s shot, if you haven’t seen it (or want to see it again).

It was Albert’s 13th homer of the season and his fourth in the past three days. The Mang enjoys playing the Cubbies, obviously! The blast Sunday was one of those in which you and he just knew it was gone once the ball left the bat and his grin and run in to the home plate area only to be mobbed by his teammates left you with the hopes that maybe, just maybe, the REAL Albert Pujols is back!

Another good thing about Sunday? Ryan Theriot hit an RBI-double in the bottom of the ninth, to tie the game up.

You know what this means right?

RYAN THERIOT HAS A 19-GAME HITTING STREAK!!!!! How awesome is that!? I say, so awesome!

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Countdown Now At Three …

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Regular season baseball is clearly in sight on this Thursday morning, as it’s only three days away now.

The Cardinals final game at Roger Dean Stadium is today before the team heads to Memphis to take on the Redbirds tomorrow. Wrigley Field now has its gigantic new video board installed in left field (see why the rooftop owners across Waveland Avenue were a little ticked? Never mind that they’ve been profiting from the Cubs for years anyway as the rooftops turned into a big-dollar industry).

And, speaking of the Cubs, there is a No. 3 connection in recent Cardinals history. Actually, there have been a lot of No. 3s in recent Cardinals history. The last player to wear the number for longer than two seasons? Edgar Renteria, from 1999 to 2004.

So, with 3 more days to go, here’s a look at the three latest No. 3s.

3

Ah, Mark Ellis. Years ago I liked him when he was an Oakland A in the Big 3/Moneyball era. I was excited when the Cards signed him for 2014, thinking he could be a valuable bench addition. So it goes. Most fans have probably already forgotten his 73 games, 202 plate appearances and .180/.253/.213 line. Thanks for the 32 hits, Mark! And happy retirement.

APTOPIX NLCS Dodgers Cardinals Baseball

Better memories here, much better …

Carlos Beltran followed Lance Berkman in right field as a past enemy turned hero once he donned the Birds on the Bat. (Here’s to Jason Heyward continuing that tradition this year and beyond, although he was never quite the Card-killer Beltran and Berkman were.) Carlos hit .282/.343/.493 in his two-year Cardinal career, with 56 homers and 181 RBI during the regular season. And, for the first time in his then-16-year major league career, he made it to the World Series in 2013. Continue reading →

It’s 2015, So The Cardinals Will Make The World Series

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During this interminable baseball off-season, looking ahead is common. We have to pass the time some way, right?

new-years-questionsWorld Series predictions based on every free agent signing also are common, and happen every year. Remember when the Angels were going to win in 2012 after signing That Guy Who Used to Play First Base and C.J. Wilson? Or when the Nationals would win in 2013? The Dodgers in 2014?

Now it’s 2015, and we’ve already heard plenty about the Cubs (yes, the Chicago Cubs) going to the World Series this year — that’s what “Back to The Future II” said! And now Joe Maddon’s their manager! They signed Jon Lester! And the Vegas odds say so! Woo hoo!!!!

Yeah. We’ll see how that goes once they actually start playing …

Instead, I not surprisingly have a different perspective. The Cardinals will win the 2015 National League pennant this year and return to the World Series. Continue reading →

Catching Up With The Cardinals: Friday Edition

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Friday at last, of a seemingly very long week — guess the polar vortex and snow will do that. And, with just over a month until Cardinals pitchers and catchers report to Jupiter on Feb. 12, baseball still seems far away.

saint_louis_cardinals_logoNot that there hasn’t been baseball in the news this week, with the results of the Hall of Fame voting revealed on Wednesday (and all the moralizing and lecturing and pomposity from too many of those who voted spewing out both before and after). Ahead of that, though, Graham Womack at Baseball Past and Present on Monday unveiled his fourth edition of the 50 best baseball players not in the Hall of Fame. It’s a long and great read, well worth the time for the information on each player (although three listed now are Hall of Famers — congratulations to Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas). There are several Cardinals on the list, including Ted Simmons at No. 26, Joe Torre at No. 34 (as a player, since he’ll be inducted as a manager in July) and Ken Boyer at No. 40 (and I was privileged to write about him for the project).

Speaking of Simmons, if you haven’t read The Sin of Being Second to the Best Ever by Derrick Goold yet, read it now.

Also, check out Legendary Cardinals Instructor George Kissell Deserves a Spot in the Hall of Fame from Stan McNeal at Fox Sports Midwest. Definitely would be a deserving honor for a man who did have, still has and will continue to have such an impact on the Cardinals and all those who have played for the team.

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Bullpen Woes, Dugout Decisions Cost Cards in Washington

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Well then. (Where do you even begin with a game like this?)

On a day when the Cards had a great chance to get back on track after the terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad series against the Brewers over the weekend, it went from bad to worse and then some, come the sixth inning.

That newly dreaded sixth inning.

Jaime Garcia had done his job, allowing two runs on eight hits through six. Not mind boggling, but solid. Certainly good enough for his 7th win on the year. Plus, he left with a 4-run lead. With only three innings to play, that should be enough. Right?

Games like this are just plain hard to watch, as the Cards lose to the Nationals 8-6.

Or not.

Now, in all honesty, the drama started in the fifth inning on back-to-back errors by everyone’s favorite short stop, Ryan Theriot. Up until that point, he was doing his fan club proud, with two hits and a run scored. But it was all for naught, once the error machine took over.

To his credit, he did start the inning-ending double play, and no runs were scored, but the fifth-inning struggles were only a sign of what was yet to come.

Garcia would likely have made it out of the sixth unscathed  if Theriot would have fielded not one, but two ground balls that went down as infield singles. I’m really not sure what happened with Theriot, but neither play was made, and Garcia ended up charged with a run.

And instead of rallying to score some insurance runs, the bats went silent … as did Cardinal Nation when the bullpen call was made for the seventh.

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Holliday Helps Westbrook Win

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Holliday

Jake Westbrook definitely deserved a win Saturday, after allowing only four hits in eight scoreless innings. Thankfully, Matt Holliday came through with a two-run homer in the top of the eighth as the Cards shut out the Royals 3-0.

Wait, that’s not enough on the homer. It was a bomb into the left field fountains at Kauffman Stadium, 433 feet total. And it left male Cards fans on Twitter and broadcaster Dan McLaughlin gushing about their man-crushes on Holliday. I mean big-time gushing — click here for Danny Mac’s call. (He was still talking about it during the bottom of the eighth inning, and probably still talking about it this morning.)

Westbrook

True, it was impressive. And it had been a very frustrating game on offense for the Cards to that point — they were 0 for 10 with runners in scoring position through seven innings. But I was more impressed with Westbrook getting out of a bases-loaded, none-out jam in the fourth inning.

First, he got Jeff Francoeur to ground the ball right to him for a 1-2-3 double play. (Come on, how often do you see that particular play?) Then, Ryan Theriot (yes, really) made a diving stop of a grounder hit by Billy Butler and an equally good throw to first for the out.

Thankfully, Dave Duncan agrees with me about the importance of that fourth inning, as Rick Hummel pointed out in his Post-Dispatch article:

“That was the real key in the game,” said Duncan. “If something happens there, you don’t know how that game is going to go.”

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Hats Off, TLR. Brilliant Strategery.

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Score one for Tony La Russa.

As so aptly put by 2xAught7 in his tweet, it was brilliant strategery by TLR to have Miguel Batista start the game last night, with bad weather imminent in downtown St. Louis. And reading this quote from Dusty Baker backs that up all the more: “The information we received was probably not the same information they received.”

Well, Dusty, there’s this thing called the Internet, and you can look up this thing called the radar, and it shows you what weather is approaching …

In contrast, look at this — praise for TLR’s move from Brandon Phillips?

“I’m going to give the Cardinals two thumbs up for what they did,” the Reds’ Brandon Phillips said. “They changed their pitcher on us at the last minute, that was a very smart thing to do.

“The next thing you know they brought in their starter who was going to start the game, and he was fresh.”

The Reds didn’t do that, of course. Edinson Volquez warmed up before the game began at 7:15 p.m. and was thus unavailable after the two-plus hour rain/storm delay. Even though he never set foot on the field, he’s listed in the box score as the Reds starter. Just like The Poet is listed as the Cardinals starter.

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And Now We Know What TOOTBLAN Means

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Why didn’t you leave this habit in Chicago?

With all the good that happened in last night’s game — and there was so much, yet again — it’s foolish to focus on the one and only bad part of the game.

Yet I am.

Yes, Ryan Theriot was 3 for 5 last night, raised his average to .323 and had an RBI. But, along with that RBI, we saw for ourselves what TOOTBLAN means.

It was the fourth inning, Kyle McClellan (who had a couple of tremendous at-bats facing Clayton Kershaw) was on first after being walked and Theriot was up. He hit a long fly deep to left-center that bounced off the wall. McClellan to race around the bases to score. Yay! And, though Tony Gwynn Jr. fielded the ball right away since it bounced off the wall, Theriot kept zooming along right past second base. Perhaps he thought he could make it to third since Juan Uribe threw the relay from Gwynn to home? Or perhaps he just didn’t think. Regardless, Rod Barajas alertly threw to third, which Theriot was not even close to yet. So he stopped, caught in a rundown. Casey Blake threw to Aaron Miles and, in a moment of hilarity and some weird former Cub cosmic convergence, Our Little Namesake chugged along and caught up with Theriot to tag him out. (See the play here, positively labeled “Theriot’s RBI double.”) And there you have it, TOOTBLAN.

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