Not that it changes anything, but I’m going to take the rest of this week off–officially, as opposed to my usual slacking-off method–so as to combat my Annual Motivation Loss Spectacular. The idea is to have a new design and some Interesting New Features up when I come back, but regardless I’ll be updating again.

Ideally.

Meanwhile: go Cardinals. I can’t believe they’re doing it, but–well, they’re trying to do it. Youneverknow.

I hate to broach the subject, but this is starting to get disturbingly reminiscent of the 2006 team, isn’t it? I’m not just imagining things?

I don’t think it’s only the intermittently-successful ex-prospect turned rotation anchor, though I could be wrong. Pineiro, who will almost certainly have cost less in terms of prospects than Jeff Weaver, has actually pitched a lot better than everybody’s favorite World Series Hero, right? Here’s his first four starts, compared to Weaves’s last six (one of his better regular season runs:

         IP/S  K/9  BB/9  HR/9  FIP   ERA
Pineiro  6.00  4.8  0.75  1.88 5.08  3.38
Weaver   5.78  5.5  2.33  1.30 4.64  4.15

Or not? Pineiro has walked two guys in 24 innings yet given up five home runs, which is probably enough to break FIP. Since Duncan found him–apparently–tipping his pitches, he’s become Extreme David Wells, keeping the ball in the strike zone and occasionally watching it get pasted. (Unfortunately Duncan couldn’t fix the last pitch-tipper, Mike Maroth, because hiters just kept sitting on the suckball. Obviously those are unsustainably bizarre peripherals, but like Weaver Pineiro appears to have the kind of stuff that would make the average Duncan project… well, not a Duncan project.

But that’s not it. Is it the way Albert put the team on his back, April 06 style, during this most recent set of division games? Slugging .958 in the most crucial road trip of the season is pretty good, but if he keeps this whole finish-the-season-on-a-tear thing up he might be making up an MVP, instead of losing one inexplicably. And that just wouldn’t be in keeping with the 2006 theme.

I think it’s the bullpen management. As boros pointed out, La Russa used his bullpen playoff style; any more playoff intensity and he probably would have called in Randy Johnson to close the game out. This from a guy accused of mailing it in early in the season–a guy who’s left pitchers of the Kelvin Jimenez or Randy Flores class in close games. Unless this season ends as badly as it began, I think we might be, uh, stuck with a Hall of Fame manager another season; it seems like he’s got his genius yen back in full force. How awful.

The annual move of global Get Up, Baby! operations to Columbia, Missouri, has caused a most inopportune post drought, one which will be rectified shortly. But I must say: it’s good to compete again, no matter how long it lasts. These MV3 Cardinals are the ones I’ll be using for in-my-day rants in my dotage, so if they’ve got a little more in the tank… well, by all means, keep the accelerator on the floor.

But, as good as it was to see the Jim Edmonds Post-Swing Bat-Drop, and the 450-footer from Pujols, and Rolen’s continued post-cortisone heroics, the real star is Dave Duncan’s Traveling Pitching Circus. The most recent geek to be added to the show, Joel Pineiro, looked outstanding last night–he had the full regalia of breaking pitches and, more importantly, the moving fastball for which he was known back in his Young Ace days. I don’t know why he has it, or why he didn’t before, or how long he’ll keep it, but his stuff was outstanding.

This is getting to be a theme; yesterday marked the sixth game in a row in which the Cardinals have walked exactly one opposing batter, which is a good way for even the Cardinals’ group of bread-denters to post a startling K:BB ratio (5.83.) How are they doing it? Well, luck. But two of the members of this newly solid rotation are well-regarded young pitchers, and two more are relatively sensible as far as reclamation projects go. And the other is Braden Looper, who has defied explanation so consistently that there’s no point in wondering about him anyway. Luck aside, this might be happening because–I shudder to think–the Cardinals’ rotation is finally not all that awful.

We got to the stadium just before game time, and there was a weird buzz in the air. I am, of course, referring to the excitement over Joel Piñeiro’s second Cardinals start. On the way down to our seats it seemed like everyone was facing the same direction and having the same conversation.

He was a pitcher, I gather, and then he wasn’t a pitcher. Here’s the last moment he had before all eyes were glued on him for the duration:

Eckstein got on base, and up came the number two hitter:

And I’m sure there were… one or two people there who didn’t know the full scouting report and thought: What kind of hitter is this guy?

CROWD [unison]: Well, he doesn’t get cheated out there.

Second at-bat: more cheers. More swings. A strikeout.

Back in the outfield, a good play momentarily masks the nervous realization that a good story doesn’t have to keep being good all the time.

At-bat three: more cheering, then a strikeout, then deathly silence, then more cheering.

In the meantime, the Cardinals have knocked Chris Young The Terrible out of the game. Piñeiro has dominated an admittedly mediocre Padres lineup with a wide variety of breaking pitches and a better fastball than he’s had in sometime, and the bats have scraped together two runs for Izzy. But for some reason, people still seem ill at ease. And Rick Ankiel is back here, listening to nervous applause.

Foul ball. Ball. Ball. (Crowd: hey, he can take pitches! That’s good, right? Maybe this is a learning experience.) Curveball:

Never any doubt.

No matter what happens after this, the movie finally has an ending.

The Rick Ankiel Photo Stalkstravaganza will be up later tonight. That might have been the best sports-related moment of my life; I still have goosebumps. Strike up another chorus for The Natural, Mr. Newman.

Allow me to put you in the proper mood for this moment:

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go try and get a ticket.

It feels like 2004 all over again. Why? Because Brian Gunn, formerly of Redbird Nation, has written an article that illustrates my position on a topic much better than I ever could. Roid Monster is the last article I will ever feel a need to read about Barry Bonds and The Steroid Era™, so I would definitely recommend it.

We begin with: Yet another promise to write more. I do hereby solemnly promise to stop abandoning the blog without warning; I am not The Nilly, and my monthly posts would therefore not be enough of an event to justify this site’s continued existence. Therefore: daily, or something close to it. I hope.

Also: I hear this Bonds fellow did something? Even I have been stunned by the depths of my indifference. All along I’ve maintained that I do not care about steroids, and I don’t, but even considering that I can’t pretend that the bizarreness of Barry’s career path has nothing to do with the fact that I watched a Without a Trace rerun–Jan Levinson was an abusive mother with a child on the run!–instead of The Barry Show.

Moving on: Now is the time in all great maybe-dynasties when we allow ourselves to use the term rebuild instead of reload. I’m all for the Cardinals floating to within five games of the top of the central a few more times, but provided that doesn’t happen the remainder of the season will be dedicated to finding out what’s going to be helpful for next season, and what’s not going to be here next season.

Anthony Reyes remaining in a Cardinals uniform was the silver lining to Walt falling asleep on July 31 after spending all night talking with Theo Epstein about Joel Pineiro. (”He just looks so much like Randy Flores! Tony’s gonna get a kick out of this like you wouldn’t believe.”) He’s not been the machine with the startling K:BB ratio that’s pitched at Memphis the last several years, but his last few starts have been extremely encouraging. Starting with the “complete game” rainout that preceded his demotion, he’s done this:

IP  H  ER   K  BB  HR   ERA   FIP
23 15   8  13   7   2  3.13  4.11

He’s getting hit lucky, but that’s still some solid work–and considering the guy was being fit for his ex-prospect cap a few months ago it’s encouraging to see that the whole He Needs To Do What’s Comfortable meme hasn’t lost all its value yet.

Well, the Cardinals definitely weren’t messing around when they said they were buyers. They added a former 16-game winner!

All eye-rolling aside, I like Joel Pineiro’s chances of contributing at least as much as those of, say, Mike Maroth, and he’s certainly better than Jorge Sosa on the Mid-Season Retread scale. As with most retreads, though, his recent statistics do not tell a lovely story; they illustrate a Kip Wellsian saga of lurking on the cusp of ace-hood and then struggling to do much of anything afterward. Some arbitrary but very edifying endpoints:

          GS   W   L   IP/G   K/9  BB/9  HR/9  K:BB
2002-2004 81  36  29   6.75   6.6   2.8  1.05  2.30
2005-2006 55  14  23   6.01   4.7   3.0  1.17  1.58

Losing two strikeouts a game is very rarely a good thing. Pineiro has never had elbow surgery, but a fat lot of good that’s done him; he’s had elbow problems on and off for the last three years, and it’s cost him a fair amount of velocity on his heavy two-seam fastball. But apparently the Cardinals are–

Wait, wait, back up a little.

–Jeff Weaver used to be really good! I think he’s got a chance to–

No, no, forward.

–Mike Maroth used to be kind of good! I think he’s got a chance to–

Little more.

–heavy two-seam fastball–

Ahh. Now the acquisition makes sense. Back when he was a future stud Pineiro’s fastball was described by Baseball Prospectus as Tim Hudson-esque, but his groundball ratios have never been much to write home about.

That said, this is another pitcher right in Dave Duncan’s wheelhouse–a mediocre veteran with the makings of a Cardinals-Special sinker whose strikeouts do not appear to be coming back. Nothing wrong with taking this flier, whether the Cardinals are in contention or not; it’s not like he’s blocking anybody.

Of course, the Cardinals’ sudden decision to start winning games did have one unfortunate side effect: their old, effective bullpen has been left completely untouched, aside from the former starters who’re about to end up in the back of it. Meanwhile, useful players such as Wilson Betemit were getting traded for Found Arms on the same day that Chris Perez, our anointed closer of the future, struck out two of three batters he faced in his AAA debut.

Whether you’re sellers or, as the Cardinals appear to be, very reluctant buyers, you can’t pass up a chance to get young talent for guys you plucked out of the ether months or, in the case of Percival, weeks ago.