and he tormented Brad Lidge with such startling frequency, the Astros would have come away with a restraining order at this point. As it stands, they need only make sure Phat Albert stays more than 60′6″ away from the man at all time. I think a judge would uphold that.

A similar injunction could probably be granted for Jeff Weaver, keeping away left-handers, switch-hitters, righties with open stances, and people with left hands. Today lefties went 5-12 against him with two doubles and a homer, while righties were… well, 2-8 with a homer. But his continued susceptibility against left-handers is just crazy; perhaps an arm angle change is in order?

They’ve always hit him hard; during his time in Detroit they’d typically hit around .270/.330/.470 while he did his usual job of handcuffing righties. But ever since his second average year in Los Angeles, where he traded in his preternatural ability to keep the ball in the park for a Suppan/Old Maddux-memorial control pitcher with gopherball issues statline, they’ve reamed him. Anybody know somebody who saw a lot of Weaver prior to 2005? Because his approach has to look completely different now.

If you’re keeping score, that makes it two Cardinals starters whose repertoires are better suited for the bullpen; Weaver seems like Braden Looper, more or less, while Marquis continues to feature one pitch and a lot of terrible breaking stuff.

In the Maybe-Disheartening, Maybe-Not department, Mark Mulder’s surgery was a success. What’s strange? How the piece is worded. Basically, though Mulder won’t pitch for another four months, and his contract is up–well, a while before that, he plans on rejoining the team soon, in the Frank Thomas Will-he-or-won’t-he role.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m still firmly in the hopefully he-will camp. It’s a good gamble, especially if the Cardinals don’t bet their World Series hopes on it. Were they to open the pursestrings for a big name pitcher, there’s an outside chance the Cardinals would end up with three top-notch pitchers by the end of 2007. And that would be pretty cool. But it’s going to be a weird few weeks in the dugout for Swamp Gas. At this point, he was supposed to be drawing big, multi-year interest in the off-season; cameramen would tilt toward him on the bench, revealing his pensive face–will he end up in New York? Boston? Toronto? But no–out of his mind for now–he must carry the Cardinals through the playoffs first.

Now… he’s the forgotten man of the free agent season. But I bet he could still look pensive, if he wanted.

Incidentally, final confirmation for the “He’s pitching hurt” crowd; rather than being a fraying of the rotator cuff, the doctors discovered upon opening him up that it was half torn. All together, and in the general direction of the Cardinals dugout: We told you so. Often.