KTE- The St Louis Pond Scums Thursday 9/8-Sunday 9/11

[Guest mlbaseballtalk]

A Look At A Glance
The PS Cardinals are making a push towards back-to-back Central championships as well as back-to-back 100 win seasons (BTW fun trivia, name the last two teams to win over a hundred games in a season, and then went on to win the World Series) which they hope will lead to redemption this October, after their embarrassment of being swept in 4 by the Boston Red Sox.

Cardinals are currently at 88-52, losing two in a row to the Cubbies, and their Magic Number is at 11. The Astros are playing the Brewers for three this weekend, which means at best the number will no less than 4 come Monday. There will be no celebrations in front of the Mets.

Mets of course are on a three game skid, 70-69 Tragic Number for the East is 13 while for the Wild Card its now at 19

Who be the Cards? Well right now its:
C Yadir Molina BA .259 HR 7 RBI 45
1B Albert Pujols BA .334 HR 36 RBI 103
2B Mark Gruzielanek BA .292 HR 8 RBI 53
3B Abraham Nunez BA .300 HR 5 RBI 41(taken over for Injured Scott Rolen)
SS David Eckstein BA .286 HR 7 RBI 53
LF So Taguchi BA .292 HR 7 RBI 46
CF Jim Edmonds BA .267 HR 25 RBI 78
RF Larry Walker BA .270 HR 12 RBI 42

Injuries to Rolen and Walker have slowed down what was one of the most productive offensives in the game a year ago.

On The Bench:
INF Chris Duncan, Scott Seabol
OF John Gall, Hector Luna, John Mabry, John Rodriguez, Skip Schumaker
C Einar Diaz, Mike Mahoney

Pitching Probables
Thursday September 8th
Kris Benson (9-6 3.99) vs Chris Carpenter (20-4 2.28)
The eventual NL CY Young award winner has won 12 in a row, not done by a Cardinal since a guy named Gibson won 15 in a row in 1968

Jae Seo (7-1 1.79) vs Jason Marquis (11-13 4.25)
Ex Brave and local guy coming off back-to-back complete games, allowing a combined 1 run 7 hits

TBA Steve Traschel? vs Jeff Suppan (13-10 3.90)

TBA Pedro Martinez? vs Matt Morris (14-6 3.91)

Rest of the Cardinal staff includes:

Starter �Don�t Forget� Mark Mulder (15-6 3.62) who the Mets will miss (A Jim Rome story, check the bottom of this post for the rest of the story) rounds out the starters with closer Jason Isringhausen leading the charge from the bullpen.

Also on the Cards staff:
Cal Eldred, Randy Flores, Tyler Johnson, Ray King, Al Reyes, Anthony Reyes, Julian Tavarez, Brad Thompson and Adam Wainwright

No doubt expect additions as the weekend might provide a chance for the Cards to call up some more September Callups as they head into cruise control.


Some History Lessons
The all-time tally stands at Cards 347 Mets 306 after 653 games. That of course stretches all the way back to Game # 1 for the New York Mets, April 11th 1962

http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=1


My personal All Mets-Cardinals Team:

1B Keith Hernandez
2B Tom Herr
3B Ken Boyer
SS Jose Oquendo
OF Bernard Gilkey
OF Lance Johnson
OF Tommie Agee
C Todd Zeile
Bench: Joe Torre
Gregg Jefferies
Mike Jorgsensen
Garry Templeton
Vince Coleman
Joe McEwing
Clint Hurdle
SP Al Jackson
Ray Sadecki
Roger Craig
Mike Torrez
Tracy Stallard
RP Jason Isringhausen
Jesse Orososco
Neil Allen
Ron Taylor
Harry Parker

The complete Mets/Cards list can be found at UltimateMets.com of course:

http://leaptoad.com/mets/oppteams.php?ThisTeam=10


This will represent the final regular season (fingers and toes crossed that�s its not THE FINAL) visit to Busch Stadium for the Mets, a place that harkens back memories of Mets-Cards classics from the mid-80�s.

Two that really stand out of course are Darryl Strawberry�s clock shot in 1985 and the very sweet 4 game sweep in April of 1986 that propelled the 86 Mets to a route of the division and the defending NL Champs into a season of utter chaos and despair. Relive that classic series at Ultimate Mets Database now:

http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=3858
http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=3859
http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=3860
http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=3861

It doesn�t rank up there in terms of ultimate sweetness of the aforementioned sweep, but who can forget the continued implosion of Rick Ankiel

http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=6244

Game 2 2000 NLCS.
St. Louis Cardinals ip h r er bbso
Rick Ankiel 0.2 1 2 2 3 1



In honor of this being the final season at Busch Stadium, the Cards have a �Countdown Clock� counting down the final regular season games in the history of the ballpark:

http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/stl/ballpark/countdown.jsp

So far they have members of the current roster pull down numbers (representing their own uni number) , along with other past, and present St Louis sports greats or other luminaries that happen to have been in town (Frank Robinson, Ken Griffey Jr, Tony Perez)

So far number pullers with Met connections:

68 Jason Isringhausen
64 Family of the late Ken Boyer
63 Bing Devine
55 Jose Cardenal
50 Joe Torre
46 Jerry Buchek
45 Bob Gibson
36 Keith Hernandez
30 Tim McCarver
29 Vince $#)%($#*(%$%& Coleman
24 Whitey $$*%()$**(#$% Herzog


Remembering A Dark Day
A moment of silence, since Sunday will be the 4th anniversary of the terrorists attacks on September 11th, 2001










Coincidentally enough, the New York Giants are opening at home Sunday afternoon, their opponents shall be, the Arizona Cardinals.
At first I figured, hey NY teams will be facing the Cardinals, but then I thought, ya know, there will be some sort of remembrance during the game in some form or another. That has to be a highly emotional game. On both sides, considering that the Arizona Cardinals were the team that the late Pat Tillman played for. Tillman of course was the guy who after the attacks sought to enlist in the Army, sent over there and died last spring.

Don�t Forget Mahk Moda!

Yes, before I do forget. A few years ago on the Jim Rome national radio show was spoofing a funny sound bite where Allen Iverson�s mom was interviewed by a local reporter, and it appeared that AI�s mom had her own posse. So Rome thought it�d be great if HE had his own posse, and so members of his show�s staff were in the studio basically doing stuff you hear someone�s �crew� say. Like agreeing with everything their guy said, repeating it, the whole nine yards. Well Mark Mulder (then with the A�s) was scheduled to be on an upcoming show, so as Rome is saying �Mark Mulder� in the future guest run down, one of the crew said it exactly this way: �Don�t Forget Mahk Moda!� Since it sounded like he said �Mota� instead of �Mulder� very often the �Mahk Moda� clip will play when ex-Dodger and current Marlin (and former Mike Piazza antagonist) Guillermo Mota is brought up.

[DocTee]

nobody, but nobody, runs on Yadier Molina-- Cards have surrendered something like 25 steals all year-- it'll be interesting to see how Reyes et al do against him.

[smg58]

Watch Beltran try to steal third with Wright up.

[Zvon]

now thats a KTE....

good job.

[Guest Spacemans Bong]

smg58 wrote: Watch Beltran try to steal third with Wright up.

With 2 outs, don't forget.

I'm bitter.

[MFS62]

Excellent!

Since this is Know Thy ENEMY, let's talk enemy.
Looking over that roster one name jumps out as the primary Met killer - Taguchi.
At one point, including spring training games, he had what seemed like a zillion consecutive hits against the Mets. I wonder if any of the Met pitchers will able to get him out.

Later

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Well done.

Not for nothing, but I think the Mets will do alright in this series.

[Valadius]

We're facing Chris Carpenter tonight.

Fuck.

[Elster88]

It doesn't matter my friend. There are no playoffs, there will be no playoffs.
_____________________________
This post had the designation 160) Kaz Matsui

[Guest Edgy DC]

The birds on the jersey seem to be a deeper red than in past years.

(This is where some young guy tells me that they changed it ten years ago.)

[DocTee]

they changed that about ten years ago (not sure if that's true, just trying to placate the old man)

[metirish]

Super KTE, good job.

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Great job with the KTE thread.