Game 81, 2014

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Cardinals at Dodgers, 7:10PM PT, TV: SPNLA

Adam Wainwright (he of the 10-3, 2.08 ERA record) goes for the Redbirds. The Dodgers send Josh Beckett (5-4, 2.28 ERA) out to meet him. Wainwright’s ERA is second in all of baseball, Beckett’s is fifth. (Kershaw’s is 2.24, but he hasn’t got the number of innings to match the one-inning-per-team’s-games requirement yet — he’s got 72.1 innings, and the Dodgers have played 80 games.)

Who’s gonna pitch for the Cards the rest of the series? Good question.

Joe Kelly, Michael Wacha and Jaime Garcia are already missing because of injury, and St. Louis had to use five relief pitchers after Miller exited. There is no official word on whether Miller will be available for his next start.

That means that Carlos Martinez (three career starts) and Marco Gonzales (moved from Double-A to the Majors on Wednesday for his first start) might need to hold down spots in the rotation.

Lineup when available.

52 thoughts on “Game 81, 2014”

  2. The Gnats have convinced. I now think they can finish above .500, but I doubt whether that’ll be good enough to get them into the post-season.

  3. Without looking at the actual stats, I feel the end of the 2nd quarter of the year is MUCH better than the end of the first!

    • It’s interesting if you divide it into thirds. March/April we went 15-12, May 15-15, and June (so far) 15-9. Our best offense was in May at 4.6 R/G, but our pitching was RA/G 4.2. We are only at 3.9 R/G in June, but our pitching is at 2.8!

  9. Reds win!
    2 GB — better than I had hoped to be at the ASB . . . let’s go, Blue!

  10. Nice to win at home and a one run ballgame. Improving towards .500 on both counts.

  13. What a great game for Josh.
    And good for Brian, getting the W along with his bobblehead . . . Becoming a team again!

    • I know. Watching on Gameday(Catalina Island writing retreat, so no eyes) and my heart sank.

  26. Rojas again with the glove. Seems to have a good arm as well. (been a while since we have had a real SS. 2009 was Furcal’s last full season).

  28. Last October, LA was down 0-2 in the LCS and facing Wainwright. I had just returned from the penultimate game vs. the Braves and had a ticket to this first LCS home game.

    But I seriously debated if it was once again worth boarding my dog, traveling down and back (plus spending the night in Victorville), only to see the Blue continue their LCS frustration at the plate — vs. Wainwright, no less.

    I decided to go and cheered the Blue to victory, raising my postseason record to 3-0 (over two years) . . . and I got the chance to meet RBI and KT.

    The moral of the story? There are two:
    1) David can sometimes beat Goliath.
    2) The Dodgers should pay for me to attend their postseason games.

    Go, Blue!

  29. Those who follow the CWS no doubt know that Vanderbilt won its first-ever title last night, in its second trip there.

    Underneath all the hoopla, there’s a story about a Vandy pitcher who was told at the season’s first game by a teammate that he wouldn’t propose to his girlfriend if Vandy won the CWS.

    He said he would. So, last night…

    http://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/college/vanderbilt/2014/06/26/vanderbilt-pitcher-proposed-title/11392675/

    [Hope link is good. Poor starving Gannett (Tennessean owner) has gotten downright chintzy about demanding subscriptions. If not, think a version is available elsewhere.]

    • Awwww. Good for her, good for him, and good for the Commodores.

      Why does a school in Tennessee call itself the Commodores? Because Cornelius Vanderbilt, who gave the first money ($1 million when it meant something) to build the school, made his initial money as a steamboat company operator and was given the nickname “Commodore,” as were many other steamboat operators.

      • And amassed his great fortune largely in railroads and shipping. And whose name is associated with the term “robber baron.” At the time of his death he was worth around $2 1/2 billion in today’s dollars.

        • And if John Kenneth Galbraith is to be believed,

          “several generations of Vanderbilts showed both the talent for
          acquiring money and the dispensing of it in unmatched volume, adding
          that they dispensed their wealth for self-gratification and very often
          did it foolhardily.
          Confirmation as to the validity of Galbraith’s views is that only
          forty-eight years after the death of Cornelius Vanderbilt, one of his
          direct descendants died penniless. Within seventy years of his passing,
          the last of the ten great Vanderbilt Fifth Avenue mansions in New York City had been torn down.”

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanderbilt_family