The bullpen blows another one as the Cards fall to 3rd place, and yet that is not the night’s worst news. Colby Rasmus hurt his MCL on a check swing in his first at bat tonight and had to leave the game. This comes per Colby’s dad. He could be lost for the season, and that is definitely a huge downer with just a little over week before the Olympics start. Hopefully it’s not as bad as initially feared, we’ll just have to wait and see.
The P-D reports that the Cardinals have “expressed interest” in Orioles’ closer George Sherrill. Goold also says Eddie Guardado of the Rangers could be a possibility, and notes that the Rangers really like Jess Todd. Trading Todd for any 38 year-old middle reliever is just borderline insanity. Just put Todd in the major league bullpen right now and he’s more likely to help the team win more games than Eddie Guardado. The possibility of Sherrill for the right cost is more plausible; he absolutely is murder on lefties, but because he’s tied for 2nd in the majors in saves so his value is likely to be pretty inflated. Sherrill has a story similar to Josh Kinney‘s, as both were discovered in the independent Frontier League.
As I am sure most of you have already heard, Joe Mather is back as Chris Duncan has been DL’d. I just hope they give him a few starts.
1B Curt Smith was named the Appy League’s player of the week.
David Freese 2-for-4, 2B, 3 RBI.
Nick Stavinoha 1-for-4, 2B.
Bryan Anderson 2-for-4, stolen base allowed.
Clayton Mortensen 6 IP, 5 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 2 K, 1 HR.
Clayton Mortensen‘s K/BB ratio of 27/23 over 47 innings certainly is less than inspiring. I still think he would’ve been better served spending his season in AA. I still like him as a prospect quite a bit, and I still like the fact the Cardinals are aggressive in promotions, but he’s certainly not wowing anyone right now. Freese is slugging .621 in his last 10 games.
Cody Haerther 2-for-3, HR, BB.
Mark Shorey 2-for-4, 2 2B.
Allen Craig 3-for-4.
Andrew Brown 2-for-4.
Tyler Herron 5 IP, 7 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 6 K.
Scott Vanderweg 1.1 IP, 3 ER.
Fernando Salas 1 IP, 2 IP, 1 ER, 1 K.
The S-Cards scored 2 runs in the 7th and the 8th to give us a little something good in a bummer of a baseball day. Allen Craig is batting .404 with a 1.189 OPS in the month of July. Since the AS break, Salas has been a little shaky. I think saves are a pretty meaningless stat, but for what it is worth Salas has 18 this season to lead the Texas League. Speaking of players that have been victim to overly aggressive promotions, it’s nice to see Herron miss some bats tonight.
Tyler Henley, Matt Arburr, Daniel Descalso and Brian Cartie each hit singles for PB’s only hits.
Brad Furnish 4.1 IP, 8 H, 6 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, 2 WP.
Elvis Hernandez 2.2 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 1 K, 1 HR.
Casey Mulligan 1 IP, 1 H, 1 BB, 2 K.
The only positive I can take from this game is that the Casey Mulligan project continues to go well. The hit he allowed was his first in A ball, and he has 9 strikeouts out of 20 batters he faced. There’s a new Jason Motte in town.
Quad Cities was off.
Blake Murphy 1-for-4, HR.
Beau Riportella 2-for-3, 2B.
Jameson Maj 5 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 K, HBP.
Ramon Delgado 1.2 IP, 4 H, 4 ER, 4 BB, 1 K.
Rigoberto Lugo 1.1 IP, 1 BB, 2 K.
Lacurtis Mayes 1 perfect inning, 1 K.
After hitting .315 in the Appy League, Riportella looked like could be an interesting sleeper. He has a cool name, a posse, and blazing speed. But then he hit for a .319 OPS in the QC and was demoted, only to hit for a .432 OPS in Batavia going into tonight’s game. Seeing him in person I thought his swing was little league at best. Liam‘s favorite pet prospect Maj lowered his ERA to 2.90. He has 27 K’s to just 3 walks in 31 IP. Not shabby for a 45th round pick.
Johnson City versus Elizabethton was suspended.
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Mortensen got hit pretty hard tonight…there were five infield lineouts that very easily could have been through for hits and turned it into a disaster start. Just a bad start though — happens to everybody at least once or twice a year. The big problem was that he got behind *everybody* today.
He’s fun to watch, though. Works pretty quickly, usually doesn’t mess around, and he gets a lot of weak contact. It wasn’t weak today, though…
The Rasmus play was really weird. It didn’t really look like a check swing, but it could have been that his knee started giving out before he moved his bat. He seemed like he flinched at it, and he collapsed in the batter’s box. You could tell right away he was done for the night, though. He could walk on it, with a limp…that doesn’t mean much with knee ligaments though. But like they said n the scout thread, you never know, it could end up being less serious than we’re all afraid of right now.
Excuse me gentleman, a bridge and I have a date.
HL,
Need any company?
I am never a big fan of MRI’s, but an intact ligament would be the best news I could hear all day tomorrow…
Well, the bridge is mine. However, she has a sister named train that you can stand in front of, if you like.
I know how you feel HL…. Kind of want to go meet that friend Train that you speak of. PLEASE be an Intact ligament.
Joe Strauss made it seem like Colby was going to be shut down after the Olympics and not be called up, Colby’s dad suggested the same.
So if that is true all that is lost a month of development and the olympics…which really blows for him personally, but it shouldnt derail his progress.
I personally hope its a 6 to 8 week thing and he is ready for the Arizona Fall League.
I hope it’s nothing too serious when it comes to Colby’s knee. That just sucks for him.
The bullpen…grrr!
Todd for Guardado would be insane, but I’d do it, and throw in a couple more good players, if the Rangers would only include Ian Kinsler in the deal.
rob:
Kinsler isn’t going anywhere. The Rangers have bought out his arbitration years at a relatively inexpensive price (5 years, $22M) and he is one of the best (if not THE best) young second basemen in baseball. In baseball economic terms, he is more valuable than anyone in the Cardinals organization not named Albert Pujols.
Oh, excellent. Hang on while I go to the roof of this tall building.
Colby’s dad seemed to back off those comments a little later if you read the whole thread. It seems like it was a snap medical diagnosis. Maybe the trainer, or whoever told Colby that, was mistaken. I hope so.
On the bright side (if there is one), this should end all the speculation about Rasmus being traded at the deadline (which would be worse than a season-ending injury in my book).
One minor correction: Casey Mulligan’s line so far in the FSL is 11 IP, 9 hits, 1 run, 11 K’s, and 5 walks. For a 20-year-old in high-A, the numbers are very encouraging. Kudos to Casey & the organization for initiating this career change; CM is now one of the 4 or 5 most interesting relief prospects the Cards have.
Maybe it’s partly the contrarian in me, but I like the placements of Mort and Herron in AAA and AA, respectively. Their middling results so far should provide more learning, more growth in the long run, than the comfortable semi-dominance they enjoyed at lower levels (as long as they don’t suffer from inordinant self-confidence shortcomings, of course).
So, on a related note, is it time for a Nick Additon promotion?
It’s all a diversion to keep teams from asking for Rasmus in phone conversations:
“Oh, you want Rasmus? Aw, jeez… I’m really sorry, but he’s injured. Yeah, I know. Oh, you’ll take Nick Stavinoha instead? Great…”
if they trade todd for guardado i lose all faith in this organization.
[...] field? While that may not be that big of a deal (and actually a blessing), news of Colby Rasmus injuring his knee is a big deal. The good news is Rasmus won’t be traded now, the bad news is he may not play [...]
Mozeliak may end up getting backed into giving up guys like Todd and Jay for average relievers when teams like the Reds are going to take guys like Street off the market.
It’s like the rest of the NL Central is trying to back Mozeliak into making a bad deal. Next, we’ll see Pittsburgh trade for Brian Roberts and George Sherrill.
Rasmus: Grade 1 strain. Out a month.
Good news.
http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/prospects/?p=1409
He is being replaced by Schierholtz