Nice of the Cardinals to decide to take a game from Pittsburgh while they were in town. I was beginning to think that the Pirates would wind up in first place in the division by the time the Cards escaped…
Mitchell Boggs did “just well enough” in his short outing again to put the Cardinals in a position to win. Boggs’ starts mostly haven’t been pretty, but he’s been strangely effective, despite a BABIP even worse than poor Todd Wellemeyer.
How ’bout that bullpen? More on that later…
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Colby Rasmus hit a massive two-run home run into the Allegheny River last night, hopefully indicative of things to come. The book on Rasmus indicates that power is there, it may just take some time to come around at the big league level. Rasmus is a historically slow starter, so perhaps by the end of May Colby could be cruising toward some Rookie of the Year votes? He’ll certainly have his opportunity with the injuries to Rick Ankiel and Ryan Ludwick.
Only 18 players have hit balls into the river during a regular season game, a total of 25 balls finding the water. All but one have bounced in. Daryle Ward is the only player to have accomplished splash-down on the fly.
According to Hit Tracker, a cool site I happened upon looking for info about balls hit into the Allegheny River at PNC Park, here is the tracked flight of Rasmus’ bomb:
Now, the question is, what to call such a shot by the rookie? Last night, “Colby Jack” was suggested somewhere on Twitter. I think “Razzle Bomb” also has a ring to it. What’s your flavor?
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Baseball-Reference.com‘s Stat of the Day blog takes a look at Albert Pujols’ struggles lately, specifically addressing streaks of games in which Pujols has failed to reach base at all. (Spoiler: It could be a lot, LOT worse.)
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ShysterBall provided a fascinating link to the illusion of a batter watching a curveball approach. It’s really a pretty amazing thing to watch, and then imagine something like that approaching you at about 80 miles per hour. No wonder I was out of baseball by high school.
Hat tip to @ktooke for the heads up on the link.
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Horrifying article in Sports Illustrated about supplements and the business, and how that stuff isn’t much better than just going straight for the illegal drugs.
Methinks this hits home to more than just professional athletes.
Another cap tip to @injuryexpert and @JohnMarecek for the link on that one.
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We hosted another edition of UCB Radio Hour on Wednesday night. If you haven’t caught it already, check us out on iTunes via the link above right, or you can use the player at United Cardinal Bloggers homepage.
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Finally, we were tapped in for another installment at Fantasy Baseball Hot Stove, on topics ranging from the bullpen (shocking!) to Pujols (he’s still hitting .320 fer chris’sakes, don’t drop him!) to Ankiel (no, he’s not dead).
Check it out when you have a moment.
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