Infield of Woe

By: David Lister

A loss yesterday to the Reds dropped the Cards to 1-1 since the Pujols injury - and 3-1 since Wainwright was placed on the DL. It’s only two games, but a couple of things are obvious already.

Chris Duncan isn’t going to work out as the everyday first baseman. He might not even be a platoon option right now. He’s 1-8 in two starts, and the only hit was a single. At this point it’s been more than a year since he was a productive offensive player, so it’s no sure thing he will return to his 2006/early 2007 form.

The problem is there really aren’t any other options. Recent callup Joe Mather has been unimpressive in 34 MLB at-bats, which means at this point he’s a platoon guy at best. Troy Glaus homered yesterday and continues to be solid, but moving him to first base would mean someone would have to shift to third base. And who would that be? Brendan Ryan? Aaron Miles??

Which brings me to my point (see title). Until Pujols returns, TLR has to pick four of these guys to make up an infield:

BA OBP Slugging
Troy Glaus .262 .369 .445
Chris Duncan .244 .348 .370
Joe Mather .206 .325 .324
Adam Kennedy .248 .307 .282
Aaron Miles .290 .336 .326
Brendan Ryan .292 .340 .333
Cesar Izturis .242 .322 .303

Yikes. I know TLR is good at shuffling the lineup to get the most out of people, but it doesn’t look like there’s much to get out of this group.

And apparently Adam Kennedy isn’t all that happy about his playing time decreasing.

“I think with Brendan and Aaron it’s not that big of a difference,” La Russa said. “Adam has always been a core guy, so it’s more of an adjustment for him.

“I think he can handle it. When he plays, he needs to play his tail off.”

Help may be on the way, though. I’ve championed the potential acquisition of Brian Roberts here before, but in reality that’s going to cost the Cardinals some top level prospects. Despite the 40-28 record, Cards fans need to constantly remind themselves the team is still rebuilding.

MLB Trade Rumors has another idea - Ray Durham. Durham was awful last year (.218/.295/.343) but he has started off hot this year, batting .305 with 5 steals for a bad Giants team.

While it’s doubtful he’d be as productive as Roberts, he would surely be cheaper. More importantly, he might be able to provide St. Louis with a productive, every day option at second base.

The Dead Have Risen

Here in Oz we wrote an obit for his career. It was proclaimed our beloved Cardinals we winning in spite of him. But now, despite all signs pointing to ‘washed up,’ Jason Isringhausen is returning to St. Louis.

General manager John Mozeliak confirmed a “very encouraging” report regarding Isringhausen’s second rehab appearance and suggested that the Cardinals’ career saves leader could return to the Redbirds’ bullpen this weekend against the Philadelphia Phillies.

“We won’t make any decision until Izzy throws his side and we have a chance to talk things over,” Mozeliak said. “But I think there’s a good chance we do something in fairly short order.”

Mozeliak downplayed the likelihood that Isringhausen will return immediately to his former role, saying instead the righthander could appear “in a variety of situations.”

Despite my harsh words in the past, I’m okay with this move. As long as we don’t see this guy get anywhere near a close game for a while. Izzy’s amazingly consistent history proves he can be an asset to this bullpen, but there is still some serious psychological work that needs to be done.

Oh yeah, and…

  • The Cardinals 13th round draft pick will not be joining the team anytime soon. He’s got a pretty good excuse, though.
  • Future Redbirds interviews 6th round pick Eric Fornataro.

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David Lister is the web editor for the National Sports Review. You can reach him at chicagosportsreview@gmail.com. Go Cards.

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