RMJ 158 July 23

WEDNESDAY, JULY 23 ● St. Louis, vs Cardinals

I had breakfast in the coffee shop this morning. Had the same thing I had yesterday. Why not? There is no sense tempting fate.

 

Gerry called midday, just as I was preparing to leave for the stadium. He was excited about our first pick in the draft, Lance Berkman. Berkman is tearing up the Florida State League. He already has five home runs, and he’s only been there a couple of weeks. Gerry saw him hit two doubles in a game — one righthanded and one lefthanded.

“This guy is a winner,” he said. “We may have struck paydirt this time.”

On another subject, he was concerned.

Switch-hitting catcher Mitch Meluskey started at AA this year, and he was having a good year with the bat. When Randy Knorr was injured and had to have surgery, Mitch was called up to AAA. Now Mitch has injured his left shoulder, and he can’t swing right-handed. By all accounts, he is not ready to catch at the big-league level yet.

With Randy out, and Mitch and Tony Eusebio injured, we are in a precarious position: if Brad goes down, we’re stuck without a catcher.

We talked about this some. Should we go out and trade for a catcher who has big-league experience, but who is not on a major-league contract? Yes. But the problem is, Gerry has not been able to identify a single catcher in this situation.

He has several options to pick up a backup catcher who is on a big-league contract, but this would necessitate keeping three catchers on the big-league team, and sending someone else down. This would weaken our bench, but we may have to do it anyway.

If Brad gets hurt, we could have to pay a high price for a player we won’t need a month from now. I have never known insurance to be cheap; catching insurance could be even more expensive than life, casualty, fire, and auto put together.    

I called Gerry later, and he had already made arrangements with Randy Smith of the Tigers (Tal’s son) to obtain Matt Walbeck in case of an emergency.

“I don’t think he would hold us up,” Gerry said. “But I’m going to review all of our options regarding catchers anyway.  It might take a couple of days to make a deal with Randy. I’d rather have a guy at AAA, just in case. That way we could get him here in a hurry. But it’s nice to know we have an option that won’t force us to take up a roster spot right now.”

I was relieved to hear this news. I don’t want an extra catcher who isn’t going to play, or even pinch-hit. In this league, you tend to need everyone on the team. Bench strength is an important and underrated item.

 

During this winning streak, I have gotten into a superstitious habit. I wasn’t chewing tobacco during the games, until Bill started doing it about two weeks ago. Then we had a few nail-biters, and here I go again.

Now I find that if I chew tobacco while we are in the field, and gum while we are at bat, we will win the game. If we win enough games in a row, I will probably have stomach problems — if my teeth don’t rot out first.

I will ride this one until it fails, and I hope it’s a long ride. We tied our longest winning streak of the year tonight, and we swept the Cardinals — and the whole road trip — in the process.

This game really surprised me, in a number of ways.

I thought Chris Holt might have trouble with the Cardinals, because of all their lefthanded hitters. He did have trouble — but it wasn’t the hitters, it was his own control. He self-destructed in the fifth inning, and it cost him the win.

We had built a 5-1 lead off Todd Stottlemyre, and I never would have predicted that, either. Bidge led off with an infield hit.  Thomas Howard, in the two-hole for a spot start, followed with a home run. Derek Bell’s two-out single got us another run.

Holt shut them down in the first.  We added two runs in the fourth, and single markers in the sixth and eighth, to ice the game.

I can’t remember Stottlemyre being this wild; it certainly doesn’t show up in his numbers. I don’t really consider him a staff ace, but he is only a notch below that.

He is one of the toughest competitors I have seen on the mound. He has a good fastball, and excellent breaking pitches. He usually gets better when there are men on base. And in previous outings against us, he has been indefatigable. What’s more, he is a good fielder and good hitter and a good baserunner.

I guess when you’re on roll like we are, you tend to catch a guy on his “off” day. We caught Todd just right tonight.

 

The only down side to the game was that Holt didn’t get the win. He hasn’t won a game in about a month, and he was really pressing. He got behind every hitter in the fifth inning, giving up a hit and two walks and loading the bases. When he walked Ray Lankford, I had seen enough.

I felt for him, knowing how badly he needs a win. But with Gary Gaetti coming up and only one out, we had to have someone in the game who could throw strikes.

If Chris had been throwing strikes, I would have left him in. But when he kept getting behind dangerous hitters, I became increasingly fearful of someone connecting for a home run or a double, putting the home team and the crowd right back in the game.            

Mike Magnante came to the rescue. He got Gaetti on a sacrifice fly and John Mabry on a grounder, and we came back in leading 5-2. We immediately built the lead to 7-2.

Magnante went above and beyond the call of duty, working 3-2/3 innings of perfect relief. Jose Lima finished up.

We are now 4-1/2 games up on the Redbirds, and 3-1/2 games ahead of Pittsburgh.

 

I saw something that I really liked in the postgame clubhouse: no hilarity. Sure, the guys were happy. But there was also a sense of professionalism — the cool, calm feeling that comes when you expect success.

I don’t know how long this can last, but with 21 of our next 29 games at home, we have a chance to really take charge. Of course, I felt like that in June, and we didn’t get it done.