The average rain delay for the Cardinals this week has been over 3 hours, so in comparison, the 1:05 power-nap on Saturday was almost welcome.
Almost.
The season is four games old and the Birds are 2-2. With Peralta (.079), Craig (.125), Molina (.188) and Bourjos (.000) all struggling at the plate, .500 doesn’t seem all that bad. They still have a chance to open the home schedule above the even mark record wise.
Saturday night, Shelby Miller got lit like a Chief Keef spliff, while the offense floundered around scratching out 2 runs in the 5th inning before the pitching let the win out of the barn by surrendering 9 runs in the following 3 Pirate plate rotations.
Bad games are bad games. They happen. The Pirates are a good team. Not as good as the Cardinals, but a good team. You’re going to lose some games when you play good teams over the course of a MLB season.
This Cardinal team had a fair amount of hype less than a week ago. From InsideSTL.com, Tim McKernan wrote:
“Barring some way above the league mean for games missed due to injury, the 2014 Cardinals have the pieces in place to put up a monster win total.
I’m not talking just 100 wins. I’m talking 110-plus. I’m talking 2001 Seattle Mariners’ territory. That team won 116 games.
The combination of the Cardinal talent and the questionable National League Central lend itself to fertile ground for grandiose win totals.
Perhaps 25 years from now, baseball fans will look back on this team like historians look back on the 1998 Yankees (114 wins and a World Championship), the 1975 Reds (108 wins and a World Championship), or perhaps the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings.”
I agreed. And I suppose I still do. But the sluggish start by so many players. The constant rain delays. The defense. Is this small sampling of bad foreshadowing a team that struggles to live up to (high) expectations all year? Or a team that’s been on the road for some crappy weather against good teams?
I don’t know.
But after 4 games, the door is cracked – if even just a little – for the NL Central to be more of a streetfight than any of us could have imagined as the Pirates and Reds stood pat during the off-season with their rosters.
And that’s bad.
Photo: Justin K. Aller/Getty Images
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