700 Clark St.

First of all, the good news: Carpenter went seven innings of one-hit ball, giving up only one unearned run and picking up his first win in two years. It’s good to have him back, and I hope he keeps it up all year long.

But in the midst of Carpenter’s gem came this little bit of ugly: It’s the bottom of the seventh, bases loaded, one out, the score 2-1 Cards, Colby Rasmus batting, El Hombre on deck. Rasmus hits a fly to right field, an easy fly out, and now José Oquendo has a choice: whether or not to send the runner from third after the catch.

Here are the possibilities:

1. He doesn’t send the runner. Then there will be two outs, bases loaded, with Pujols up. Pujols: he of the career .426 OBP and .335 batting average. In other words, there’s a better than 42% chance that Albert pushes the runner from third over, and a better than 1 in 3 chance that he’ll do it with a hit, pushing over two or more runs. At worst, Albert gets out, the inning is over, and the score remains 2-1.
2. He sends the runner and the runner scores. Great. Now it’s 3-1 with two on and Albert up. Not bad, and we probably could use the insurance run. But again, if Oquendo doesn’t send the runner, there’s a great chance Albert drives him in anyway.
3. He sends the runner and the runner doesn’t score. Now, just like in Strategy #1, the inning is over, score stays 2-1–only this way, Albert leads off the eighth with the bases empty.  This is decidedly the worst-case scenario.

If the fly ball is deep and the runner is quick, then it’s worth the risk; otherwise, why try it? Best thing to do is go with Strategy #1, right? Instead, here’s what happened:

• The fly? Shallow.
• The runner on third? Yadier “swift-footed Achilles” Molina.
• Oquendo’s call? Send him!!
• The result? Albert leads off the eighth with the bases empty.

As it happened, Pujols grounded out to lead off the eighth anyway. And we did win the game, so it all worked out in the end. But still: it’s not every player that merits a departure from conventional wisdom, but Albert is one of those players.  When he’s on deck, we need less aggressive baserunning, not more.

Saw this on ESPN today:

Albert Pujols is encouraging the St. Louis Cardinals to sign Manny Ramirez….

Pujols passed along Ramirez’s telephone number to St. Louis manager Tony La Russa.

“Maybe St. Louis doesn’t have the money to sign him, but he could give them a discount because St. Louis is a great city that supports its players,” Pujols said.

Albert has no business weighing in on this. As I said to brody, it’s not his job to weigh in on who should or shouldn’t be on the team — that’s up to Mozeliak and, to a lesser degree, LaRussa. Before this, Manny wasn’t even on the Cards’ radar; now, Albert has put the team in an awkward position no matter what they do: if the Cards do sign Manny, it’s going to look like they did it because Pujols told them to, and if they don’t, it’s going to upset a fair number of fans (who, let’s be honest, care more about Albert than they do about Mozeliak). Basically, it doesn’t matter what Albert thinks the team should do — he should keep his opinions private and not discuss them with the press.

FWIW, I love the idea of Manny on the Cards. I’d love to see him bat 5th, with Ankiel sandwiched between him and Albert, forcing opposing managers to burn a LOOGY. Knowing LaRussa, though, the order would probably be more like Ankiel batting 2nd, followed by Albert, Manny, and Ludwick.

As futile as it may be, I am a schedule watcher. There should be support meetings for people like me. “I’m Pete Cerneka. It’s been one month since I looked ahead on the schedule …” It is definitely true that you can pretty much pick any time of the season and make a claim like, “This is the most important stretch,” or “The next two weeks will tell a lot, might even decide the season…” At rare times this practice can be productive.

When the Birds got out to a hot start at the beginning of the year, I was as surprised as everyone else, but I can say that I could see the feasibility of it all. The Cardinals didn’t face a truly grueling stretch in the schedule until the beginning of June (the May Tampa Bay series ended up being a surprise exception, which kind of points to major flaws in putting your faith in schedule watching, but I digress) . So, now that I have sufficiently prefaced my scheduled watching addiction let me just say that this is the most important stretch of the year and the next two weeks will tell a lot, might even decide the season.

The Cardinals are just now finishing arguably the toughest stretch of the year. Starting on July 25 with a game against the Mets in New York, the Birds have played 20 games with only one day off. Only six of the 20 were home games and they were 3-3 in that home stand.  Over the entire stretch the Cardinals were 11-9.  Now during that time it’s true that we have slipped a bit, but considering all the obstacles we faced and the difficult schedule, being three back in the Wild Card and seven out of first place isn’t too bad and certainly not the end of a season, not by a long shot. In fact, I’m predicting right here and now, on the 700 Clark St. blog that by September 1, the Cardinals will be first in the Wild Card and challenging the Cubs for first place.

How you might ask? Well there are a lot of answers to a question like that, most of which are by no means set in stone, including the quality performances by Adam Wainwright and Chris Perez and the reemergence to the lineup and center field by Rick Ankiel. (But maybe not Chris Carpenter. I just got work that Carpenter has landed on the 15-day DL with a strained shoulder. Based on the last time he pitched, he’ll be coming off the DL in time to face the Brewers in St. Louis on either August 26 or 27. So at best we’ll get one win out of him until September.)

But in addition to the players, the schedule holds some keys.

To begin with, the Birds have four days off over the next two weeks, which should help a fatigued bull pen and an ailing Ankiel. Days off in August are like gold.

Of the 13 games they do play, seven are at home. Now Busch Stadium is not a place the Cardinals have played well enough this season but despite their struggles, the Birds still have a winning record at home  (33-28) and all their off-days are centered around their seven-game home stand, which probably makes them more productive days off, if there is such a thing.

While those schedule-intangibles are promising, the teams we play point to even more positive things.

The Cardinals start the stretch on the road tonight with an awful Cincinnati team that is 31-31 at home and that has posted a 3-10 record in the month of August so far despite playing the likes of Washington, Pittsburgh and Houston.

Our home stand is a perfect combination of weak teams and a team we want to play head-to-head. The Birds start with Pittsburgh, then welcome Atlanta (both 5-8 in August) and finally face Milwaukee for a quick two-game set. The good news about the Brewer series is that a win is an automatic gain in the wild-card. The bad news is that based on the Milwaukee rotation, we will probably face C.C. Sabathia the first night and Ben Sheets the second night. While I would rather face Bush or Parra I’m not afraid to face either Sabathia or Sheets. I’d match up our offense with anybody. It’s our pitching and specifically our bullpen that’s held us back, not our offense.

We close out August with a three-game set at Houston, where the Cardinals are 4-2 this year.  Now I know the Astro are streaking right now, winners of their last eight. But this will almost for sure change between now and then. Houston plays 10 of their next 13 against teams with wining records, including Arizona and Milwaukee. Maybe more importantly, the Astros only have one day off the rest of the month of August.

Milwaukee has a strikingly similar schedule with some important exceptions. First they have one less day off. And second, they have a three-game set with the first-place and white hot Dodgers in L.A. and then face the before mentioned streaking Astros before they come to St. Louis to lose two straight.

The Cubs have just one day off until September and unfortunately play just two winning teams until then, the Marlins in Florida and the Phillies in Chicago. The rest of the time they will be facing teams like Washington, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. But, the Cubs have not had a real losing streak all season and we all know that one has to come at some time. Despite the fact that they are the best team in baseball, they are still the Cubs. So I figure this will be the time.

Predictions? The Brewers will go 5-9, with Sabathia and Sheet recording just a win a piece. The Cubs will go 6-10, giving Washington its first series win since John Edwards was a considered a faithful husband. Rich Harden will head to the DL with a hangnail and Kerry Wood’s blister will pop, putting him back on the DL until November. The Birds, on the other hand, will go 11-2, dropping one in Cincinnati and another in Houston, and of course sweeping the Brewers. Perez will settle in as the “go-to-guy” in the pen (notice I did not say “closer” and neither should you). Wainwright will start again and win at least one. Carpenter will also win one, beating either Sabathia or Sheets. Thus (if my math is right) the Cubs will be in first by one game. The Cardinals will be in second with a 3 1/2-game lead in the Wild Card over the Brewers.

What about September? Well, for now I’m going to let sleeping dogs lie. I don’t want to spoil the rest of the season by knowing what’s going to happen.

Simply put, we’re Cardinals fans, through and through.

This space is devoted to the St. Louis Cardinals, the greatest and most successful team in the National League (which of course, by default, makes it the greatest team in all of baseball); 700 Clark St. is the address of new Busch Stadium, where the Cardinals make their home. We’ll be discussing all things Redbirds-related, and perhaps more generally baseball-related as well. We make no apologies for our bias, but we do hope to be intelligent and thoughtful throughout.

Go Cardinals!