RIP Nick Adenhart. The 22-year-old Angels pitcher passed away early this morning in a tragic hit-and-run accident in Fullerton, CA.
The many news bureaus reporting on the accident this morning [LA Times] [ESPN] [NBC LA] [NBC Williamsburg] [More links at Baseball Musings] indicate that it was a three-car incident, caused by a minivan that ran a red light and then fled the scene.
The story is even sadder when you consider that Adenhart was on his way home from making his Major League debut, in which he threw six scoreless innings with five strikeouts.
Early reports indicate that one of the other passengers in Adenhart’s vehicle was also a member of the Angels organization.
Sad sad story, and we Cardinal fans can relate. It is always terrible to hear these stories.
Our prayers and thoughts go out to Adenhart’s family, friends, and the Angels organization. Godspeed.
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This morning’s sad news kind of puts last night’s Cardinal loss into perspective. The Cardinals seemingly put in a lackluster effort and were rewarded as such. Everyone looked lethargic and just not that into the game.
Todd Wellemeyer looked awful, getting knocked around for twelve hits in his five innings of work. Wellemeyer appeared to be trying to fool the Pirate hitters a bit too much and found himself behind in many counts.
Now, I understand that the Pittsburgh lineup is chock full of left-handed hitters, many good ones at that. Sure, they are good fastball hitters, but aren’t most big leaguers? Welley was trying to get way too cute with the breaking balls early in the count instead of just getting ahead of hitters. Arguably, the defense didn’t help him much either.
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Congrats to David Freese on his first big league hit. I didn’t see any shenanigans going on with the ball like in Tuesday night’s game on Colby Rasmus’ hit.
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Here’s hoping Chris Carpenter’s start today against the Bucs goes much better. I still knock on wood anytime something good happens to Carp, and today will be the same from his first pitch to the last. The Cards must have this guy healthy to do anything of note in the division, in our humble opinion.
12:40pm Central Time start today for the Redbirds – let’s bring one home.
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Last night we hosted another edition of United Cardinal Bloggers Radio Hour. You can listen to the show by using the player at the UCB site linked here, or by clicking on the UCB Logo in the upper right there and get it via iTunes. We were joined by James from Astros County who gave us some great insight into the ‘Stros organization and what to expect from this weekend’s series. We also had a short series follow-up with Jim from North Side Notch, a Pirates blog. He got to gloat a bit about the direction this series has gone to date. Many thanks to Tom from Cardinals GM for helping me steer the ship.
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Got plans to be at the Saturday April 11 game against the Astros? PH8 will be there for the 3:10pm start, taking in our first live Cardinal action of the young 2009 season. Hit me up on Twitter @PitchersHit8th, in the comments section below, or via the contact form linked above and let me know if you’ll be there too. I’ll buy you a cold A-B beer for saying hello!
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