Blue Streak

The Blues are currently enduring the downswing of a season long trend. St. Louis has gone all year without a streak, either winning or losing, stopping at just one game.

The opened the season with consecutive wins over the Flyers and Ducks. The Blues went on to lose three straight, all on the road, to Chicago, Nashville, and Dallas. This pattern has remained consistent throughout the season right up to their last game of November, which is tomorrow night in Chicago. Now that the Blues have lost two straight, there's no telling what tomorrow's outcome will be. But if they beat Chicago and you like to put money down on trends, betting on the Blues to knock off the Capitals when they return on home on Wednesday night is your kind of bet.

There are two much more telling and disturbing trends that are currently plaguing the Blues. First, only the Predators rank worse offensively than the Blues. The team was getting scoring from David Perron before he went out with a concussion. And although T.J. Oshie had scored just one goal before breaking his ankle, he had chipped in nine assists to the Blues' scoring cause. Another factor that isn't measured on the scoresheet, is how Oshie is one of the team's best forecheckers and how he can create offense with his hitting in addition to his constant pursuit of the puck. With those two players out, the St. Louis has needed to find other sources for scoring. To an extent, they have. Andy McDonald and Brad Boyes have both come alive on the scoring front. Boyes had a four-game goal-scoring streak in recent weeks and McDonalds had three goals and a shootout goal between last Wednesday's and Friday's games. Defenseman Alex Pietrangelo is having a very strong year in his first full NHL season and is leading not just the team's blue-liners, but the entire team in assists. Unfortunately, that's about where the bright spots end for the Blues' scoring. David Backes has been fairly quiet all season. Patrik Berglund has looked brilliant at moments, but still hasn't developed into the consistent scorer that the team had hoped for when they drafted him in the first round. Matt D'Agostini, who was on fire to begin the season, has been stuck at six goals for quite some time.

The secondary scoring also hasn't been there for St. Louis. Alex Steen, who got a lucrative extension over the offseason, hasn't been producing lately as he's failed to register a point in six consecutive games. Jay McClement has only scored in one game all season. Sure, in that game, he scored three goals, but he needs to contribute more as well, especially since we know he has the talent to do so after his hat trick against Atlanta and in addition to him putting up 29 points last season. He currently only has one assist for a total of four points, which has him on pace for just under 15 points by the end of the season. Everyone on the offense can improve and must if the Blues are going to stay in the thick of things until Perron and Oshie can return. Jaroslav Halak is a fantastic goaltender, but he can't post a shutout in a third of the team's games like he did over the first nine. Expecting that would simply be both unrealistic and unfair to Halak.

The other trend that the Blues much change and quickly, is the fact that they continue to blow leads late in games. It was an issue earlier this season when they coughed up a couple of late leads, including a two-goal advantage in Chicago with just seven minutes remaining in regulation. The Blues ended up losing that one in overtime, but they then followed that up with their seven-game winning streak. The Blues blew third period leads in back-to-back games with Dallas over the weekend, reprising the pattern from earlier this season. I'm not asking them to roll off another seven-game winning streak, but they can't go back to their old ways of blowing leads like they did all of last season. Not being able to close out games is the primary reason that the Blues missed the postseason a year ago and if the team goes back to that mentality, where they play not to lose, it will have similar results this season.

Photo by John Grieshop

Managerial Decisions

When the Cardinals announced that they'd be bringing back Tony La Russa as manager for another season, and possibly two with a mutual option for 2012, they pretty much were saying that's what has happened over the past two seasons is acceptable.

I suppose that I'm spoiled since the Cardinals make the playoffs so often, but really, they just haven't accomplished much in the last two years. In 2009, they couldn't score runs for about the last two months of the season including the playoff series against the Dodgers that resulted in a sweep. The offensive struggles continued for most of 2010 and coupled with injuries to Brad Penny and David Freese, among others, allowed an inferior Cincinnati Reds to win the division. The Cardinals easily had the best rotation in the division as they had two Cy Young candidates in Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter as well as rookie Jaime Garcia, who was among the leaders in ERA for the majority of the season. Some decent hitting should have been enough to win most of their games, but the team continued to have their difficulties with hitting, especially after Ryan Ludwick went down. Less than a week after the team got Ludwick back, they decided rather than add some more offense (the obvious problem with the club), they would rather go after another pitcher to replace Penny and get rid of even more offense my sending Ludwick to San Diego. I was furious when I saw that this trade had gone through and we ended up not acquiring any offensive pieces to replace Ludwick. Add this to the fact that Tony La Russa never wants to play Colby Rasmus when after that trade, he was clearly the second best offensive outfielder on the team behind Matt Holliday, and the team was doomed due to a lack of production.

La Russa won't even allow the sub-par offensive talent he has to get in a groove because he's always changing the lineup around. Aside from a massive amount of injuries, there's no reason to run out 100 different lineups in a single baseball season, but he does it year in and year out. If you look at the teams that made the playoffs this season, almost every single one used the same lineup for the majority of the postseason. When the Texas Rangers take the field in San Francisco on Wednesday for Game 1 of the World Series, you can bet that Elvis Andrus will be batting leadoff and playing shortstop. That's his role. He knows it. I know it. And most importantly, his manager Ron Washington knows it. And if Tim Lincecum shuts down the Rangers in Game 1, you can bet that Andrus is going to be right at the top of the order again for Game 2, rather than Washington trying to "shake up" the batting order to get something going. This is what works and it has worked for years. It's the same with batting the pitcher eighth. No team has ever won a World Series while batting the pitcher eighth. Why? Because it doesn't work. For a guy who's been managing in the big leagues since the early 80's and in the National League since 1996, you'd think La Russa would have figured this out by now. Hopefully he'll finally figure it out this season. Otherwise, Cardinals fans are in for another disappointing season that will end up with a sub-par team winning the NL Central and another season of the Carpenter-Wainwright tandem wasted.

The Chicago Cubs also made a puzzling choice with their managerial position. Ryne Sandberg, perhaps the Cubs' biggest player icon behind Ernie Banks, was very vocal in discussing his desire for the position. He's managed his way through the minor league system and by reaching the helm of the Cubs' Triple-A club, he was the logical choice. But the Cubs rarely do what is logical and they continued that trend by simply dropping the "interim" tag from Mike Quade's title, retaining him for the 2011 season. I realize that the Cubs started to play better under Quade down the stretch, but for a team that's had so many issues over the years, why would you pass on a guy in Sandberg who's lived through these problems and understands the Cubs mentality? Sandberg has stated that he still wants to manage at the major league level and with that no longer being a possibility in 2011 with the Cubs, Chicago could see him go elsewhere and perhaps even manage against the Cubs in this upcoming season. We'll see how it plays out, but I certainly think that passing on Sandberg will soon be an addition to the laundry list of regretful decisions that this franchise has made over the years.

This year's World Series had its ups and downs for me. It was certainly an up that it didn't have the Yankees in it and even more so that it wasn't a repeat of the Yankees and Phillies series from 2009. That would have been reminiscent of the late 90's when it seemed like the Yankees and Braves were in it every year, even though they only met in the series twice (1996 and 1999).Another poitn of interest was being able to see two cities get their first shot at a title in the same year. Even though the Giants had won before as a franchise, all of their titles came while they were in New York, and the Rangers had never even won a pennant before this season. As for a downer, it would have been nice to see the series at least go back to San Francisco for a sixth game. Cliff Lee, previously infallible in the postseason, dropped both the series opener and the series clincher. Neither Lee or Giants ace Tim Lincecum had their best stuff in Game 1, but both brought it to the table in Game 5. Lee just made one very big mistake to World Series MVP Edgar Renteria and it cost him dearly. And although he had first base open and could've walked Renteria or at least could have tried a little harder to pitch around him, Lee refused to do so and came right after him. That's the kind of mentality a manager or a GM wants out of an ace pitcher. They want a guy that thinks,"Screw you. I'm better than you and now I'm going to beat you." When a pitcher has that mentality and the stuff to back it up (yes Jason Marquis, you really must have the stuff to back it up for that to work) it makes him a very valuable commodity. This why even with giving up that bomb to Renteria and going 0-2 in the series, Lee is still being sought after and sought after hard, by the Yankees. There's word coming out according to ESPN that Lee and the Yankees are meeting in Arkansas, which just goes to show once again, few good things ever come out of Arkansas (No offense Tyler). Yes, now that the postseason has ended, it looks like baseball will go back to business as usual. The Yankees will continue to try and buy another title, the Red Sox will do the same while claiming that the Yankees are far worse offenders, and the Pirates will rack up their 19th consecutive losing season with no end in sight. I guess hockey will just have to tide me over for now. Sigh...
 

Photos in order by Roberson/AP, unknown, and Louis DeLuca of the Dallas Morning News.

Ram-dy Moss?

The Rams have not put in a waiver claim on Randy Moss as of the end of today's practice, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. However, with the deadline still 25 minutes away, the club could still put in a claim if they haven't already.

I personally think putting a claim in for him is a great idea. Is Moss a jerk? Sure. The story that came out about him ripping a team meal right in front of those who prepared it show him to be selfish and inconsiderate. But sometimes in sports, you need jerks to win. Dennis Rodman kicked a camera man in the groin for no real reason, but man, could he rebound. He won five NBA titles and was a key member of those Chicago Bulls and Detroit Pistons teams. Manny Ramirez is a completely self-absorbed brat who only seems to care about himself and displayed this in the way he left Boston. But he helped the Red Sox win two World Series titles before he left.

The fact of the matter is, sometimes jerks win, especially if they're talented jerks, and Moss is both of those things. The Rams offense struggled on Sunday against a terrible, one-win, Carolina Panthers team. If Sam Bradford wasn't nearly perfect (25-32 with at least two of the incompletes being wise and intentional throw aways, passer rating of 112.4), the Rams would not have beaten the Panthers. The reason the offense has been struggling, going back even to last season, is that teams have been able to find success by stacking eight guys in the box to stop Steven Jackson from running. And why shouldn't they? The Rams don't have a single, healthy, deep threat in their receiving corps. Donnie Avery, Mark Clayton, and now Danario Alexander have all been injured. Clayton and Avery won't return and counting on an Alexander return with his history of knee problems would be silly.

The Rams need a wide receiver that can stretch the field. He doesn't even have to catch the ball to be valuable as long as he's a threat in the back of the minds of opposing defensive coordinators. And NFL coaches still do regard Moss as a threat. The proof is in the Vikings' game from last week against Moss' former team, New England. Bill Belichick had a corner lined up against Moss for the entire game, at least from what I saw, while also keeping a safety on him over the top. If teams are required to double cover Moss and want to put eight in the box still, that leaves just one other defender to try and stop Danny Amendola, Brandon Gibson (who played well last week), and the Rams tight ends who have proven themselves to be decent receiving threats. The Rams' opponents obviously can't leave one side of the field that wide open and would have to go with six or seven in the box instead, which would open up the running game for Jackson.

I know that there's some risk with bringing Moss in, but it's in his best interest to come in and be productive. He's already been dumped by two teams in a contract year. If he wants to get paid this offseason, he has no choice but to behave. I'm also pretty sure that if head coach Steve Spagnuolo can manage to win four games in the first half of the season after winning just one all of last year, he can handle Randy Moss.

Photographer information could not be found for this photo.