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ion of the spine is at the top the thoracic portion is in the middle and the lumbar at the bottom a cervix is a completely different part of the anatomy and not to be found anywhere on mr siegrist unless you are speaking metaphorically and not terribly nice dexter fowler will be joining siegrist with a recurrence of a right heel spur if you have not experienced that particular injury you have no idea how painful that can be as with mr siegrist let s hope the rest will help that area settle down and that this does not become more serious calm down already given those two holes in the roster what does cardinals general manager john mozeliak do to fill them let s be reasonable here mo is not going to trade greg garcia for giancarlo stanton so please limit the discussion to things mo can do before say game time to backfill fowler the answer is obvious randal grichuk is the next guy on the depth chart is already on the 40 man roster and has played in st louis since being sent to palm beach to clear his head and work on his batting approach randal grichuk has played like well randal grichuk in 14 games with memphis grichuk has slashed a 270 313 603 line thanks to some recent power and a couple of good days at the plate his strikeout rate is still 30 and he rarely walks let s not pretend that grichuk has turned anything around and earned this promotion back to st louis at the same time let s not pretend that the cardinals front office has any better choices other than magneuris sierra but that is a topic for another blog post with grichuk in st louis where is manager mike matheny going to bat him it doesn t matter with matt carpenter cemented in the leadoff spot and at first base tommy pham occupying the second or third spot and stephen piscotty in right field your only good choice to hit cleanup jose martinez will be on the bench so grichuk is your cleanup hitter it is not a good choice but mike matheny is rather void of better ones complaining about this latest grichuk situation seems rather silly should mo do something about the gaping holes in the roster yes has he done the best he could to field a 25 man active roster for a 7pm game yes that brings us to the subject of mike mayers who will replace the injured kevin siegrist oh this one has gone over well on twitter once again take a step back and see how the pieces all come together and see if you have any better ideas first brett cecil has already taken the spot we think of as kevin siegrist s few probably saw the turnaround happening this quickly but cecil has been one of the best out of the bullpen of late in the last two weeks cecil has been a rock opponents are hitting just 136 against him and slugging if you can call it that a mere 182 at the ucb blogger event a few weeks ago mo said that he believed cecil s issues were mechanical and very minor recent observations say mo might have been right tyler lyons will step up to fill the other lefty spot in the bullpen expect to see him getting more playing time which will make daniel shoptaw happy the real hole in the bullpen once the shifting around is complete is for a long man that is the role lyons had been performing when you look down in memphis for likely candidates the list becomes rather short sorting the pitchers by whip walks and hits per inning pitched you get sam tuivailala and john brebbia who are already on the active roster next is mark montgomery who we should keep an eye on for the next time an arm is needed in the cardinals bullpen then comes luke weaver who will likely be called up soon to replace michael wacha in the rotation jack flaherty is next not on the 40 man roster neither are artie reyes or ryan sherriff who probably deserves a consideration at some point this summer marco gonzales needs innings more than the cardinals need him in the bullpen trey nielsen and josh lucas are not on the 40 man roster we ve seen john gant and were less than impressed rowan wick is injured the next name is mike mayers hmmm so yes he is the 14th guy on the whip list but the ones ahead are either not on the 40 man injured or recovering from injury if you only remember mayers from getting shelled by the dodgers last season that is not the mike mayers that has been throwing a ton of quality innings for memphis his 3 74 era doesn t sound terribly exciting but remember that the pacific coast league is one the most hitter friendly in the minors mayers is throwing strikes and not getting himself into trouble with walks considering the role of long relief likely in a mop up situation mike mayers is the right guy to be called up let tui and brebbia handle the higher leverage innings mayers is the innings eater for the next time lance lynn or michael wacha can t get out of the fourth inning can we all calm down about this now welcome luke voit that brings us to the final roster move made today chad huffman has been optioned to memphis and the cardinals have purchased the contract of right handed slugging first baseman luke voit is this really a question here is there anybody that would rather see chad huffman come in to pinch hit in a game situation than luke voit 322 406 561 12 home runs 48 rbi once again we need to be realistic here the cardinals offense has been anemic and rendered nearly inert when it faces good teams luke voit is basically a right handed matt adams without the goofy nicknames and social media baggage and won t cure the cardinals offensive woes but he does give mike matheny a bat that might put the ball in play for those of you that will still complain that this is just a lateral move continue to dream on about mo signing manny machado bryce harper or somehow cobbling together enough of a package to get marcell ozuna away from the marlins like every other team is trying to do none of those were going to happen today more important nothing mo did today keeps those unlikely deals from happening save the unlikeliness of them actually happening what john mozeliak has done is improve the roster albeit marginally with the talent he had at his disposal instead of complaining about all of the things mo hasn t done since the beginning of time most of which are not realistic in the first place how about acknowledging an effort to patch some holes in a very leaky battleship it is a step a tiny one with the trade deadline quickly approaching perhaps there will be more and some big ones would be very welcome thanks for taking the time to read please share any ideas in the comments go cardinals posted in 2017 season 2 comments intentional or just irresponsible posted on september 19 2015 by bob netherton not that either team needed it but tensions were raised a notch as the final 2015 regular season series between the cardinals and cubs got under way in chicago the first of two linked events occurred in the top of the fifth inning when cubs starter dan haren hit pinch hitter matt holliday in the head holliday appeared to be ok but left the game immediately for precautionary reasons the second happened with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning when the game was all but over cardinals reliever matt belisle threw behind anthony rizzo just clipping his uniform behind the knee belisle was immediately ejected reading some social media comments both during and following the game have led me to an observation that i will call bob s razor in homage to the common interpretation of the famous occam s razor with all other things being equal a sports fan will look at any given play and see what they want to see applying this to these two game events cardinals fans are convinced that dan haren intentionally threw at holliday and cubs fans are outraged at matt belisle s retaliation it doesn t really end there as joe maddon referred to the cardinals as vigilantes with tony soprano calling the shots in the dugout following the game he offered this comment but you don t do that under those circumstances we don t start stuff but we will finish stuff anthony rizzo piles on with this postgame gem at that moment i want to kill someone because i know it was intentional ok let us all take a step back and take a deep breath try to watch the two plays with as much detachment as you can muster and tell me what you see it is a fact that we don t know what either pitcher was trying to do on their own or following orders from the dugout all we have are our eyes and hopefully some common sense it is easy to overlook the previous batter that dan haren faced before hitting matt holliday an 0 1 pitch sailed high and inside to tony cruz causing him to spin out of the way and step out of the batter s box with that image fresh in your mind what is the most likely scenario that led to dan haren hitting matt holliday that it was intentional hitting a player that has not had an at bat in a game since late july or that the pitch just got away from him like the one thrown to cruz unless haren has taken acting lessons in the off season his reaction to the pitch should tell us all that we need to know sorry cardinals fans the most likely scenario here is that it was not intentional it was a careless pitch that probably should not have been thrown oh it is fine to be outraged over lack of control but that is a different situation that needs a bit less venom now let s look in on matt belisle in the seventh inning again what is the mostly likely scenario here yeah that one was intentional but sorry cubs fans it is exactly the type of retaliation that you should have expected and not the type of thing to get your undies all in a bunch if you look very carefully at the next few frames of the video above you will see that the ball does clip rizzo in a part of his uniform behind his knee the lack of deflection of the ball s trajectory tells you that rizzo was just grazed if anything was it poor sportsmanship on the part of matt belisle if bob s razor was not in play here no it is not the same can be said of the chris coughlan slide a few days earlier that ended the season of jang ho kang of the pirates we often talk about old school retaliation and much of what is discussed is more folklore than actual history pitchers like bob gibson and tom seaver had such pinpoint control they could knock a mosquito off the uniform of an opposing batter when they wanted to send a message it would be behind a player or at least heading towards the lower part of the hitter s body sandy koufax refused to throw at hitters causing his catcher johnny roseboro to buzz juan marichal in the famous incident in august 1965 when these guys hit a batter it was almost always to regain control of the inner part of the plate not some vigilante act of revenge the problem today is that most pitchers don t have the control of a gibson drysdale koufax seaver feller or even bob veale who did have a bit of a mean streak most have no business throwing inside even though the opposing batters are wearing more armor than the knights of the round table when they do and hit a player as happened to matt holliday 17 times last season a bit of careful retaliation might prevent number 18 and perhaps a career impacting in jury as for maddon and rizzo s comments it all just if either team need comments like these to be fired up at this point in the season they don t belong in postseason the same should be said of the fans posted in 2015 season leave a comment bfib and the myth of the cardinals way posted on june 30 2015 by bob netherton the two phrases that will make a baseball fan s head spin the fastest today might be the best fans in baseball and the cardinals way with the cardinals unexpected and mostly unexplainable success heading into the 2015 all star break it is understandable how these words that cardinals fans say with genuine pride are often linked to a deep loathing of the team instead of being upset about this cardinals fans should embrace the angst because it means that the team and by proxy the fans are relevant i fear the day that nobody is talking trash about the cardinals because that means they have fallen from the headlines to the forgettable but are the best fans in baseball and the cardinals way a real thing or just something invented to give us comfort in the face of all this disrespect well they are real but maybe not in the way that you might think let me explain the cardinals way the cardinals way is very much a real thing dating back to the days when the cardinals minor league farm system was spreading faster than the latest kardashian selfie on twitter the phrase is often associated with george the professor kissell a minor league infielder in the 1940s and then manager and later coach in the cardinals system it may mean different things to different people over the years but the essence is paying attention to details execute the fundamentals honor the game written and unwritten rules honor the uniform those that came before you and work together as a team nobody in baseball taught it better and to more players than george kissell is this unique to the cardinals no that s absurd but it is one of the few things that ties together the various managerial and ownship eras of the last half century from johnny keane to mike matheny the busch family to the dewitts bill dewitt jr clearly understands how much cardinals fans value the cardinals way as an identity and has made it a very public part of the team culture and marketing programs to this day that is not to say that everybody wearing the uniform has followed the code those that didn t were frequently shown the door often in a hastily arranged deal once such example was during the cocaine scandal of the 1980s that hit the cardinals very hard and cost them fan favorites such as lonnie smith keith hernandez and joaquin andujar but the cardinals way persisted and good times returned albeit for just a little while the big misunderstanding here is that the cardinals way is no secret handshake ritual that is guaranteed to win a championship nor is it somehow unique to the cardinals over the long haul it has been a recipe for success and thanks to the stewardship under the current owners it remains that way today it is also good to remember that it has not always been that way while an entire generation of cardinals have have never experienced a time when the cardinals have not been successful the truth is that there have been many dark times over the last half century woeful times in fact i am referring to 1965 1966 the entire decade of the 1970s first half of the 1990s and curiously 2007 2009 while those teams were abysmal almost laughable at times they were every bit the cardinals way as the team that just swept the cubs in some of the scrappiest baseball that any busch stadium has seen it just didn t work for other reasons a critical injury or two players aging and not being replaced or the front office not spending the money needed to lock up or acquire key talent needed to compete it is hard to believe but that is true espe...