Batavia’s game was suspended. Khalil Greene rehabs at Springfield. Troy Glaus rehabs at Palm Beach.
- Jon Jay was 2-for-4.
- Dan Descalso continues to hit. He has a 2-for-4 effort.
- Suga Shane Robinson goes 2-for-3. He also stole his 15th base of the season.
- Evan MacLane tosses 6 solid innings. He allows 4 runs (3 earned) on 7 hits walking just 1.
Springfield 4, The Thunda from Northwest Arkansas 2
- James Rapoport goes 2-for-4.
- Khalil Greene in his first rehab game goes 0-for-4 with a strikeout.
- Steve Hill was 3-for-4 with a double.
- Lance Lynn proved to be dominant tonight. He struck out 7 in 7 innings allowing just 3 hits and 1 walk. Lynn’s yet to show consistent dominance at AA but reminds me of Clayton Mortensen in that he’s solid on a regular basis just rarely spectacular: good strikeout rate, command leaves a little to be desired, groundball pitcher, etc.
- Eduardo Sanchez, who might be the best reliever in the system after Jess Todd, allows 1 hit in a scoreless frame.
- Adron Chambers was 3-for-4.
- Curt Smith was 2-for-4.
- Troy Glaus was 2-for-4 and there are rumblings that he’ll be called up to AAA Memphis when they start their next homestand.
- A nice effort from Richard Castillo who allowed 2 ER over 6 innings. He was touched up for 8 hits and walked 2 but also struck out 6.
- Thomas Eager allows 4 ER retiring just 1 batter.
- Alex Castellanos and Jose Garcia were both 4-for-6. Castellanos had 2 doubles while Garcia had a double and a triple. Castellanos is quietly having a nice season in the pitchers park at Quad Cities posting an OPS of .826 thus far.
- Osvaldo Morales went big fly.
- Jon Edwards converted (pun intended) one ball into a HR.
- 14 hits and 7 walks make for quite the offensive outburst.
- Scott McGregor tossed 7 innings allowing 7 hits and 3 runs. He struck out 4 and walked 2.
- Adam Veres struck out 2 in an inning of work allowing 1 ER on 1 hit.
- Raco Racobaldo was 2-for-3 with a double and a walk.
- Audry Perez was 2-for-4 with a double and a HR.
- Anthony Ferrara struck out 3 in 4 scoreless frames allowing 1 hit and 1 walk.
- Michael Thompson was torched for 4 ER in 3 innings on 8 hits.
Entries (RSS)
Dan Descalso – next Cardinal called up…
I would hope Descalso gets some kind of look this year. He has at least earned a September call-up, if not sooner. However, the only way he gets called up before Sept. is if Schumaker gets hurt or they think Descalso can move to 3B if DeRosa and Glaus need additional surgery. Would that make a lot of people mad (if Descalso got called up to play third, leaving Wallace in AAA)?
I disagree. I want Descalso to get a full year to accumulate some experience in AAA. I’d really like him to make the team out of spring training next year as our starting 2B, he’s looked incredible in the minors!
bigrob: no one will be mad if it means thurston is out of the lineup
Something I have often wondered: we have a lot of prospects who come up with some good pitches but no command. At what point do you look for a high potential pitcher to show command? Do you start to worry that the prospect won’t figure it out if he still has poor control in Springfield? Memphis?
Just looking at sanchez and salas and samuel (with chris perez in the back of my mind) and wondering how we should weigh good control v. bad control at different points in development.
tom s.-
It comes back to the ceiling argument. Some of these control guys in the low minors have low ceilings but are not too far from reaching their ceilings. The high fastball velocity guys we are talking about have higher ceilings but have a higher risk of going bust. Actually this argument is pretty boring, what interest me is how they assemble a farm system of both types of pitchers. I always thought that the ratio of low ceiling to high ceiling pitchers would be determined by availability of these pitchers in the draft, but the Cardinals seem to pass on quite a few of the high ceiling guys for low ceiling players. They obviously don’t draft just based on how high a ceiling is. (some people here would like them to take the highest ceiling player for every pick.)
I think what the Cards are doing is using some factor to calculate the deviation from a players scouted ceiling–thinking that there will naturally be errors of judgment by scouts and a percentage of the players that are dismissed as low ceiling type guys were erroneously scouted and have higher potential than the consensus view by the scouting community.
There are a lot of pitchers who come up to the majors with little “command”. Historically some of them find it after a few years of giving their managers ulcers and become special. See Bob Veale, Nolan Ryan and our own Gibby. Recent examples escape me but I’m sure there are some. It seems to me that relievers like Tomm mentions should be treated differently than starters. It seems to me that a reliever shouldn’t be called up with the idea that they’ll develop control over the next couple of years particularly the ones being groomed as closers. They will not be allowed to get enough innings in to develop and they will lose a lot of games in the mean time. I think Perez and Motte could have benefitted from another year at AAA rather than getting demoralized blowing leads in the big leagues. I think a little bit differently than Erik on this in that I think that there are many pitchers with great fast balls who will never contribute to a major league team and many without great fast balls who will. I admit that the latter may have lower ceilings but I’m hoping that the dreaded PTBNL is Samuel rather than Todd.
I have to agree with some of what Big Jawn says, you’ll find more command and control issues begin with the faster velocity that they want from these hi velo guys. The higher the velo, the more likely command issues, these type of players need time to develop control with their velocity at the same time. These guys are not working on their off speed stuff, but their hi velo stuff. If you bring them up too young and too quickly they get in trouble.
I agree, Perez could have benefitted from one more year in AAA. I am watching a player from another organization being brought up slowly (he would have been far ahead in the cards organization by now) with what I think the best live arm I have ever seen, but he struggles at each level and then all of a sudden it clicks and onto the next.
Unfortunetly having a “live arm” takes a while to harness. That means more time in milb and in my opinion that is how it should be.
- Hello All . . . nice posts regarding the relievers. My question/thought is why exactly do you guys feel that Jess Todd is not on the big league club? I actually attended his first (and only!) appearance against the Rockies. He looked very ordinary, but it was only one performance. I have a hard time feeling that he wouldn’t be a better asset than say . . . Walters/The Hawk. Can someone explain if his possible inclusion as a PTBNL has an effect or if there may be something else I’m missing. Thanks for reading and responding . . .
Some probably can answer this better, but why bring him up if you don’t need him.
Cards are in playoff contention, not a good time for a player to get in MLB practice in the big league club.
He might be better off in the trade, to go where a team can give him ML innings and a loss wouldn’t hurt. The bottom line for any player is to get to ML and not sent back and forth, I think if I were him I would go where I have the most opportunity to get on a big club and stick. For them, that is what it is all about.
descalso continues to impress in memphis..the only thing he’s lacking there now is extra base power..he was a extra base machine in springfield but i’m sure that’ll come anytime now
very impressive start from lance lynn
Lance Lynn – is he making a run for Cardinals minor league pitcher of the year? might be down to Lynn, Hearne, and Todd