I must admit, bringing Berkman back does merit a few concerns. First, part of the deal is that he has full no-trade protection, meaning if the team were to tank next year, they'd be stuck with the remainder of his large salary. Secondly, he's already 34 so the odds of him repeating this season are pretty low, but I'd be more than happy for him to prove us wrong again. Third, if Berkman is going to play the outfield next year, he'll be a roadblock for Allen Craig getting in the lineup. Craig has showed fantastic power in his limited chances and it would be great to see what he could do with a full major league season. He even seems to have decent range in the outfield and in a season filled with defensive blunders, it would be nice to upgrade on that, even if it is a minor upgrade.
Now, as several of you may know, I got out of work quite early today and decided to attempt to get into the Cardinals game for free following a two hour rain delay. My plan succeeded as even though the gates weren't open, I managed to sneak past an usher and got inside during the bottom of the fourth. I used the smokers re-entry near first base, just for future reference, and then in Han Solo fashion, I blended in with the rest of the garbage and floated right into Busch Stadium.
I arrived in time to see Pujols rip his 37th home run of the year and for the game's first eight innings, things were going swimmingly. Jake Westbrook made a quality start even with walking in a run, the redbirds earned us our 25 cent drinks for tomorrow by scoring six runs, and Corey Patterson was even batting 1.725, at least according to the scoreboard. Anyone who was sober (and there weren't many of us after a two hour rain delay) would clearly realize that this was 1. Impossible and 2. Even more impossible for Corey Patterson and got quite a laugh out of it. I tried to rationalize the existence of the number and thought maybe it could be his batting average (.239) added to both his on-base percentage (.271) and slugging percentage (.359) all added together, but then it still barely got over halfway there. At this point I just decided that it was complete gibberish and that those running the scoreboards may have let loose during the rain delay as well.
This kind of mismanaging of a bullpen from a "Hall of Fame" manager is unacceptable. It's the kind of crap that has had me wanting La Russa to retire or be fired for years. And I figured since he managed like he was bombed out of his mind today, a cheap shot like using his DUI mugshot was acceptable. The Cardinals have tons of losses that they can point to from this season as the reason that they did not make the playoffs if they indeed miss them. But with this one being in the last week of the season and probably the worst loss of them all, it certainly sticks out and could be pointed to as THE reason among many reasons. I'm really glad I didn't pay to see it. If anyone needs me, I'll be in the shower crying and holding myself, just like Tobias. And oh, I'll be wearing cutoffs.