FanHouse SoTaguchi

FanHouse continues its 2009 MLB Preview with a look at the Philadelphia Phillies.

The City of Brotherly Love's long championship drought came to an end when Brad Lidge struck out Eric Hinske in Game 5 of the World Series last October. The city exploded in appreciation of a team that's a blueprint for success in the modern game, with homegrown stars studding the lineup and top of the rotation, and a handful of savvy acquisitions, like Lidge, sprinkled around to fill holes.

The Phillies! We can't forget the Phillies!

(wait, did we do the Phillies?)

Spring Dugz continues at an awkward pace, after the jump.

Ever since I went out on a bit of a limb and predicted that the Cardinals were about to put themselves back into the NL Central race, they've stunk. They went and dropped five in a row to the Pirates and Nationals before heading into a series with the Padres this week. Then they fell behind 3-0 last night against the Padres. Finally, they must've decided that enough was enough because last night they put on a parade of hits that was certainly their biggest parade since they won the World Series last fall.

In the fourth inning last night, the Cards collected ten straight hits. That is not a typo. They got hits from Braden Looper, Aaron Miles, David Eckstein, So Taguchi, Albert Pujols, Juan Encarnacion, Scott Rolen, Ryan Ludwick, Yadier Molina, and Braden Looper again, in that order. They scored ten runs in that fourth inning. In their five game losing streak they only scored 11. Scott Rolen had this to say:

"It was a little grim and ugly through the first four innings," Rolen said. "It was a little silent throughout the stadium and the dugout and everywhere. It's no secret. We haven't been playing good baseball. We haven't been swinging the bats well. ... (Then) something damn good happened. Something damn good happened for this clubhouse that hasn't happened in a long time."

I suppose that's an understatement, but I don't know how you accurately describe 10 hits in a row, so I'll let it slide.

Things couldn't go more right for the Brewers and more wrong for everyone else in the NL Central if the Brewers could write the script themselves. Today the Cardinals put both Jim Edmonds and Braden Looper on the shelf, just after the Cards had won two in a row and pulled even with the Cubs for second in the division.

Edmonds is going on the DL with about a million different things wrong with him. He had off-season shoulder and
foot surgeries and the shoulder has been giving him trouble recently. He's been pretty bad this year, but the Cards don't have many options to replace him with. They're calling up Skip Schumaker (not Rick Ankiel, like I think they should), owner of a .233/.277/.279 line with the Cards this year. Anyways, this injury puts So Taguchi in the lineup every day. Did you know he's 38?

Amazingly, it probably hurts them even more to put Looper on the DL. He's cooled off a lot recently after his ridiculous start, but taking him out of the rotation means that Kip Wells has to stay in the rotation. I discussed Wells' struggles at length yesterday. His replacement will technically be Anthony Reyes, who's been better than his 0-8 record but certainly hasn't been great this year. That's the thing about these two injuries for the Cards. Neither of these two guys have been great, but the Cards just don't have anyone to fill the holes. Six and a half games can look like a hundred sometimes.