A Sincere Thanks to Jaime Garcia

Until today's masterful performance by sophomore Jaime Garcia, there was very little to be excited about in the Cardinals' opening series of 2011. It seemed like Garcia struck out a hitter to end like every inning of today's afternoon game against the Padres, and it felt very vindicating after watching various Padres drive in runs via walks and wet little turds tooting through the infield. A shutout from Garcia is exactly what I needed to feel just a little better going into the coming week. What I'm hoping is that Garcia can sustain some growth in his strikeout rate, cut the walks a bit, and wind up with an ERA around 3.00 the real way. (I'm not knocking his excellent 2010, I'm just saying that there are plenty of indicators (FIP, xFIP) that had his ERA closer to 4.00 than the resulting 2.70).

And I don't care that Garcia's outing came against the feeble Padre lineup, because the remainder of the staff (save big, angry Chris Carpenter) made that very lineup look like the '27 Yankees or something. While the individual numbers don't bear it, well except for those of Nick Hundley (?), the Padres scored 16 runs in the first two games of the series. This is a team that had Orlando Hudson hitting third on opening day!

This is a point I make each and every season, but let's get the high-leverage innings in the hands of the correct relievers. Franklin put the Opening Day game into extra innings by letting Cameron Maybin hit a ball into forever, and that was only after recording two outs on laser beams. It wasn't just Franklin and his swing-and-crush stuff, though. TLR really felt like, with the game on the line, Bryan Augenstein, Brian Tallet and Miguel Batista were the obvious answers. This isn't a big deal if it was just some sort of hair-brained, one-off experiment, but it's trouble if it's a genuine way of thinking. With McClellan moving into the rotation, it's even more imperative that important situations rest in the beards of Jason Motte and Mitch Boggs. Why wouldn't you trust your best relievers from a season ago (both of whom are armed with doomsday fastballs) more than a guy with limited minor league success, a probable left-handed specialist, and a second-rate poet?


Even more maddening is that poor Matt Holliday went to all the trouble of pounding a go-ahead home run only to later lose the game, his appendix, and at least two weeks of the season. That appendectomy had no right to happen to the Cardinals, not after Adam Wainwright's season role got reduced to giving boring interviews to Mark Grace.

So yes, it was a frustrating series. Even the Garcia game was fraught with a lack of scoring runs, which I hear is one of the methods to which a team can win at baseball. In fact, rumor has it that eight runs across three games will generally result in a loss total no fewer than two. The lineup looked fairly punchless, but Colby Rasmus showed all the signs of a man ready to take his game to the next level. He's bulked up, his approach at the plate was stellar, and he even whacked himself a triple. Oh, and he grew his hair back out to ensure he looks more like a baby.

Next up are the Pirates, so maybe the grass is about to greener on the side I prefer. The thought of seeing Albert stand 60 feet and six inches away from Charlie Morton has already brightened my outlook. More baseball! More baseball!