Know Thy Enemy : St Louis Cardinals : 5/16 - 5/18

[Methead]

New ballpark, same old Cardinals.

The slumping Mets make their first trip to the new Busch Stadium for a 3-game set against the team picked to run away with the NL Central. For now, the Cardinals find themselves battling the Reds for the division lead, but provided they can find some offense from a player not named Pujols, and the pitching holds up (duh), the division should be theirs. As for the Mets, it looks like they won�t see reigning NL Cy Young winner Chris Carpenter this time, so they�ve got that going for �em.

Statistically the two teams are fairly evenly matched, although the Cardinals come into the series on a roll, having won 7 out of their last 10 ballgames. Over the same span, the Mets are merely playing .500 ball.

Game 1: Tuesday, May 16 New York Mets (23-14) at St. Louis Cardinals (24-14) 8:10 PM ET
Tom Glavine (L) Overall 5-2, 2.19 ERA, Last 3 App: 3-0, 21.0 IP, 1.29 ERA
Jeff Suppan ® Overall 4-2, 4.58 ERA, Last 3 App: 3-0, 19.1 IP, 3.26 ERA

STL Hitting vs. LHP
STL vs. Glavine
Suppan vs. NYM

Game 2: Wednesday, May 17 Mets at Cardinals, 8:10 PM ET
Steve Trachsel ® Overall 2-3, 4.91 ERA, Last 3 App: 0-2, 13.2 IP, 7.90 ERA
Mark Mulder (L) Overall 4-1, 4.27 ERA, Last 3 App: 2-1, 17.0 IP, 5.82 ERA

STL Hitting vs. RHP
STL vs. Trachsel
Mulder vs. NYM

Game 3: Thursday, May 18 Mets at Cardinals, 1:10 PM ET
Jose Lima ® Overall 0-2, 9.31 ERA, Last 3 App: 0-2, 9.2 IP, 9.31 ERA
Jason Marquis ® Overall 4-4, 5.33 ERA, Last 3 App: 1-2, 18.2 IP, 5.79 ERA

STL Hitting vs. RHP
STL vs. Lima
Marquis vs. NYM

Who�s Hot (last 7 games):
Albert Pujols 9/21, 3 HR, 10 RBI, 1.452 OPS (!)
Jim Edmonds 9/20, 1 HR, 6 RBI, 1.080 OPS
David Eckstein 12/25, 11 singles, .440 BA

Who�s Not:
Scott Rolen 3/23, 1 HR, 5 RBI, 0.504 OPS
Yadier Molina 3/15, 0 HR, 2 RBI, 0.561 OPS
Juan Encarnacion 3/16, 1 HR, 2 RBI, 0.610 OPS

Key Injuries:
LHP Ricardo Rincon, 15-day DL as of May 8 (Tommy John surgery, rotator cuff, and labrum surgery)

Ex-Mets:
Jason Isringhausen and Braden Looper in the pen, Gary Bennett (1 AB in 2001) on the pine.

Weather Forecast:
Game 1 : high 64, low 50, few showers, wind NW 9 mph, precip 30%
Game 2 : high 75, low 57, partly cloudy, wind W 7 mph, precip 20%
Game 3 : high 75, low 49, partly cloudy, wind NW 13 mph, precip 20%

edit : updated some stats
edit 2 : inserted Lima as Thursday's starter

[metirish]

Super KTE Methead......of course I hate LaaRussa, he's just so smart...used to love when Bobby V was the manager playing St.Louis...no love lost between them.

[Gwreck]

Darren Oliver is the only ex-Cardinal on the Mets' roster. He pitched two seasons for them, including 1999, when he led the St. Louis in innings. That was also the last season the Cardinals didn't have a winning record. (Probably not worth reading too much into that).

Jason Marquis was born on Long Island and grew up in Staten Island...was he a Mets fan?

[Methead]

I'm not sure it's confirmed that Jeremi Gonzalez will get the start on Thursday. ESPN has Bannister listed, but I think it would be Lima's turn. I put Gonzalez in there just because I'd like to see 'em skip Lima.

I'll update the links if someone else gets the call, of course.

Another note is... Pujols recently became the fastest player ever to reach 19 homers. He's probably the hottest hitter in baseball right now. Now, that would be fine if there were no other bats in their lineup, but Edmonds is hitting well, and Rolen might be waking up. He's got good numbers against Glavine and Gonzalez... not so much against Trachsel or Lima.

[Guest ABG]

I've been meaning to do a thread on just how otherwordly Pujols has been this year.

He's listed as "hot" in this thread with a recent 1.4 something OPS...but his OPS for the YEAR is 1.302. He's destroying the league in HRs, RBIs, Runs, Slugging, OPS (obviously) and is top 3 in just about everything else, save BA (8th).

He's as legitimate a triple crown candidate as we've seen in some time, and barring injury you can give him the MVP today. I can't imagine there'd be a dissenting vote.

In other words, Walk him.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Bringing him crashing to earth is another strategy.

What must it have been like for the scout who first saw that guy?

I looked it up. The Cards guys who scouted him were Dave Karraff and Mike Roberts. Karaff isn't associated with any other players. Roberts was also the scout on, among other guys I've scarcely heard of, Tom Nieto, Tom Pagnozzi, and Alan Benes.

And yet they both can go around saying, "Hi, I scouted Pujols, how you doing?"

[metirish]

Murray Chass on Pujols...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/16/sports/baseball/16chass.html

[Guest Rotblatt]

Pujols is hitting .373 AVG/.510 OBP/.920 SLG /1.430 OPS at home this season.

Fucking insane. We're going to have our work cut out for us the next three days.

Away from Busch: .275/.406/.706/1.112 OPS

Still fucking insane, but at least it's plausible.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Happy thought: Pujols getting tied in knots by chaneups from Glavine and Heilman.

Scary thought: Pujols setting an air speed record with a high fastball or tow from Jorge Julio.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Here we go.

One at-bat vs. Julio: a three-run double.

In general, the Mets have contained him.

[Guest KC]

Mets - Cards when they were both playing well years ago was a fun rivalry.
I just popped over to BirdsOnTheBat and there's one thread that mentions
the Mets and it's in a thread about the Cards record against 1st place teams.

Can I get a little pond scum hurled my way over here?

[Guest Rockin' Doc]

Nice job, Methead. This is going to be a tough series. St. Louis appears to be the best team in the National League with the best player in Albert Pujols.

[Centerfield]

It seems like every other game in St. Louis ends in a Jim Edmonds walk-off HR. I hope to avoid that today.

[smg58]

Regarding the Chass article:

Before we talk about Pujols being "free of suspicion" -- as if you can have a start like that in this climate without anybody raising their eyebrows -- do we know if the league is testing for everything the players have been taking? I'd like to think Pujols is clean, but I don't know how you can trust anybody right now, especially if he keeps this pace up indefinitely.

[MFS62]

Edgy DC wrote: In general, the Mets have contained him.

You can't stop Pujols.
You can only hope to contain him.

And watch out for So Taguchi, a frequent Met abuser.

I have Rolen on my Fantasy team. I hope he stays as cold as he has been all year, then breaks out after this series.

Later

[Methead]

So, Newsday says the Mets are leaning toward starting Lima on Thursday, and Gonzalez on Friday.

Looks like I might have to update the links after all.

[MFS62]

BTW- Sorry I forgot to mention it in my first post in this thread.
Not just a nice job. An excellent one.

Later

[Zvon]

Very nice KTE.

Yea, Willie said the other day -
" The way Pujols is hitting I think you can expect to see him getting walked like Bonds does pretty soon."

I chuckled when I read this because I knew by soon he meant during this series.

[Guest cooby]

Methead wrote: Statistically the two teams are fairly evenly matched, although the Cardinals come into the series on a roll, having won 7 out of their last 10 ballgames. Over the same span, the Mets are merely playing .500 ball.

The Mets have been running into some hot clubs lately, haven't they?


Nice job Methead, this is the first I have had a chance to read through this

[nymr83]

well, facing Jose Lima can make you look pretty "hot"
the Mets are still 24-16 (.600) and still 24-13 in games not started by Lima-time.

[Guest Bret Sabermetric]

14-14 over the last 28.