The Cardinals managed to take two out of three in Cincy and all it took to do so was to beat up on the guy from American Psycho er?rookie phenom Homer Bailey. The 11-7 loss for the Reds dropped them to an MLB worst 31-51 and proved to be the last gasp for manager Jerry Narron who was canned after the game.
Mike Maroth made his second start for the Cardinals opposite Bailey and followed up his two hitter in New York with an inconsistent three inning, five run outing that left no doubt that he would fit in perfectly with this rotation. One of the notable issues with Maroth when he arrived was his tendency to give up homeruns. Yesterday he gave up two, one of which came before he recorded an out.
That makes 18 on the season, over one per game, putting him at 4th in the Majors in most HR allowed. Currently opponents are slugging .550 against him, a number that ranks 97th out of the 97 pitchers in the Majors with over 80 innings. When opponents hit Maroth, they hit him hard and for extra bases.
The Cardinals now sit at 36-42, 9.5 games behind the Brewers in the Central. Some Cardinals fans remain optimistic that the team can work its way back into contention as they get healthy over the next few weeks. Obviously, at six games under .500, they?ll have to make a run just to get back even.
Is it possible? In the NL Central anything is possible. Is it probable based on their performance over the past year? It?s not looking good.
Here is the month-by-month regular season record for the Cardinals dating back to July 2006:
July 06 15-11
Aug 06 13-15
Sept 06 12-16
April 07 10-14
May 07 12-15
June 07 13-13
I hate to kick off the week with such a negative tone, especially after a win, but for Cardinals fans looking to grab onto something to give them confidence in a second half turnaround, there isn?t a whole lot here. Since July of last year, this team hasn?t been able to muster one month during the regular season where they managed to win more than they lost.
There?s always that 11-5 October to hang our hat on, but that?s starting to look more and more like an outlier.
