Shelby Miller Is No Starlord

After a few false starts, I finally got a chance to see Guardians of the Galaxy last night.  A wonderful movie, one I thoroughly enjoyed, but in one part as they were out in space, I thought I saw an object that I recognized, but it didn’t make much sense for it to be there.

Then I turned on the game as I left the theater and realized it was one of Giancarlo Stanton‘s home run balls.

After being excited to see the “return” of Shelby Miller in his past few starts, it was crushingly disappointing to see the long ball come back and bite him again.  Miller’s control was still fairly good–just two walks, though when you only throw five innings, that means a bit less–but the hits just kept on coming and Stanton’s hits hurt more than anyone else’s.

John Mozeliak doubled down on pitching at the trade deadline, but this time through the rotation, that’s not been a great bet.  Miller allowed eight hits and five runs in his five innings.  We know how many hits and runs Justin Masterson and John Lackey gave up in Baltimore.  Even Lance Lynn, who got a gutty win on Sunday, allowed nine hits in his 5.2 innings.  For whatever the reason, the starters seem to be allowing more baserunners, which is going to backfire sooner or later.  And it looks like sooner.

Consistency has been the biggest problem with this team, just like it was in 2010.  (To be fair, even the playoff teams of 2011-2013 weren’t all that consistent in the regular season, at least not until September.)  The Cardinals have now lost three of four on the heels of winning four of five.  There seems to be no eight of 10 or five in a row option available for this team, which is going to make things difficult.  Right now, they have to hope that Milwaukee will lose more often than they do instead of trying to win their way to the top.  Can that change?  It can, but we’ve been waiting all season for it to do so.  They are running out of time to have it change and be relevant to this season.

We’ll give Miller the Goat, though Matt Adams did his darnedest to take it from him.  0-5 with two strikeouts and you wonder if Adams might be wearing down a bit.  (He did stroke a nice shot to center his first time up, but it hung up enough to be caught.)  Adams has started the last 28 games in a row and only once come out “early” (before the 8th).  He’s hitting .172 over his past seven games and a breather might be a good idea, though there’s no obvious candidate to take a day at first.

We’ll give the Hero tag to Matt Holliday, who definitely did his part to win the game last night.  Four hits, one run, one RBI.  He even drove in the last run in the ninth as part of the two-run rally, which at least made the final score closer and gave the Cards a shot.

Another home run from Jon Jay, perhaps wanting to answer what Peter Bourjos did yesterday.  Two hits each from Jhonny Peralta and A.J. Pierzynski.  While you’d expect a little more offense against a guy like Tom Koehler, they put runners on, they just couldn’t make up the gap Miller left for them.

There were rumors floating around yesterday that Mozeliak was looking at bringing in Alfonso Soriano for the Cardinal bench.  While it’s definitely true that St. Louis needs improvement in that area, is that really the direction to go?  I mean, Soriano hit a whopping .221 in New York this season.  Sure, that’s better than some of the current bench guys, especially when you factor in the six home runs, but why not just tap the minors?  Tommy Pham is doing outstanding work down in Memphis.  Wouldn’t it be worth seeing what he has?  Mo has said he’s coming up in September anyway, why not just jumpstart that by a week or so?

Cards try to even the series with Miami tonight and send out Adam Wainwright to do it.  That’s a good person to be sending out there.  Waino got back on track last time against the Red Sox and while he’s again fallen behind Clayton Kershaw for the Cy Young, that doesn’t mean he isn’t still in the conversation.

The Marlins haven’t done a lot with him in the past and the little he’s seen Stanton, he’s been able to corral him.  Let’s sincerely hope he knows enough to keep pitches out of Stanton’s exceptionally large wheelhouse!

St. Louis will face Jarred Cosart tonight.  Cosart pitched for Houston much of the season and is a combined 9-8 with a 4.51 ERA for his two teams.  His only start with the Marlins was at the beginning of August, when he allowed four runs in 5.1 innings to the Reds.

The only Cardinal that’s seen Cosart is former Red Sox Pierzynski, who is 0-3 against him.  It’s a fresh slate for these guys tonight.  That’s so rarely a good thing, but let’s hope they have a plan.  At least more than 12% of one.

I am Groot!