Mike Maroth, the Cardinals latest pickup for the rotation from the Tigers, threw a pretty solid game last night. The downer was, the Cardinals still lost 2-1 in eleven innings and not only are the Cards losing ground on the Brewers, but the Cubs have now gotten hot and we’re falling further behind them. Still, you’d hope that Tomo Okha and Mike Maroth will give the team a little bit of stabillity in the rotation. I have more confidence in Maroth even though he was the last pitcher to lose 20 games and I feel a little better after last night.
Maroth gave up just one run on a solo homerun by Carlos Gomez in the third inning. He gave up just one other hits and two walks in 7 1/3 innings which is pretty darned solid. I know he was pretty much given away by the Tigers (we’ll see who the player to be named later is) because they had to make a move with some guys coming off the disabled list but this is a guy who’s been in a big league rotation since he got called up in 2002. I think his numbers will translate well now that he’s in the National League.
Of course, the Cardinals have the problem of losing three of their last four. In the three losses, they scored a grand total of two runs and while Albert Pujols is drawing a lot of walks, he hasn’t gone yard June 14. Still, the month of June was his best this year and even if he doesn’t drive in another run, hit another homerun or score another run, he’ll still have monthly highs in June. The other strange thing about Pujols is his platoon split is almost non-existant tihs year. He’s hitting .303/.453/.485 versus left handed pitchers and .299/.379/.544 versus right handers. So he’s hitting for a little more power against right handed pitching but he’s drawing more walks against lefties. Still his OPS split is only a fiften point different which isn’t all that much.
Of course the other news on the bad side has been Scott Rolen. What happened to this guy? Four homeruns? His numbers look similar to what he put up in his injury shortened season in 2005 the only problem is, as far as we know, he’s not hurt. He has put together a punchless seven game hitting streak though so hopefully we’ll see him pushing up to a more respectable .280 batting average here soon.
The Cards continue their series with the Mets tonight and it’ll be Todd Wellemeyer going up against Oliver Perez. Should be a good one and hopefully the Cards can come out on top this time around.
