Reyes throws another dandy

Where have the World Champions gone? And where have they buried situational hitting, smart defense, and effective starting pitching?

The Cardinals are now 16-24 and 8.5 games behind the perennial-cellar-dwelling Brewers in the less-than-stellar NL Central. Tonight's 8-7 loss to the Tigers got under my skin worse than about any other loss during the season.

The game started out just like normal: Anthony Reyes gave up two runs in the bottom of the first. Another run in the second inning and a 3-run shot in the third left the Cardinals with a familiar overwhelming defecit of six runs; however, according to the Cards' announcers, fans could still hold out hope for the remainder of the game.

They pointed out that opponents only hit .200 against Reyes the second time through the order, followed by a wretched .125 against him the third time through the order--- if he's fortunate enough to last that long.

My only guess as to why opponents hit a mere .125 against Reyes the third time through the order is that they are far too fatigued from running around the bases and scoring runs to have a quality at-bat against the pitcher who I've dubbed "The Butcher" for his uncanny ability to serve the batters copious amounts of meat. Apparently, he serves them so much meat that they can't possibly partake of all of it, hence the .125 average. Reyes' final stat line: 5.2 innings, 7 runs (all earned) on 9 hits. His record stands at an impressive 0-7, while his ERA rings in at an equally-impressive 5.84.

The Cardinals also showed their inability to participate in the essential baseball activity of capitalizing on opportunities by stranding 15 runners during the game. Once runners get on base, the batters seem to either be hyperactive (swinging at dumb pitches) or hypoactive (gazing at mistake pitches) at the plate. Adam Kennedy and Scott Rolen look like they are swinging an oar through vaseline instead of trying to hit a baseball. In fact, Rolen graciously decided to go 0-4 tonight and leave 6 runners on base, including popping up with the bases loaded to end the game. If only the game were played in a silo....

Then there is the absolute stupidity that the Cards are playing with. For instance, Juan Encarnacion's dive after an obviously uncatchable single by Ivan Rodriguez turned into a double. The next batter scorched a grounder to Pujols that advanced Rodriguez to third; however, had Encarnacion kept the single in front of him and held Rodriguez to first, the sacrifice grounder would've been a 3-6-3 double play. Rodriguez later scored on a sac fly to center, thus scoring the game's deciding run.

The aforementioned stupidity can only be rivaled by that of So Taguchi. Taguchi decided it would be funny to get caught stealing as the tying run in the 8th. There was a runner on 3rd, a 3-5 Scott Spiezio at the plate, and Albert Pujols in the on-deck circle. Yes, Taguchi was wanting to get in scoring position as the tying run, but you can't take the bat out of Spiezio's hands at that point. Even if Spiezio only singled in one run, there would be a runner in scoring position for Pujols, and the game could be left in his hands instead of in the hands of the 4'11", 100 pound Man from Japan.

Forty games down, 122 to go.

Oh, me.