Locked On Cardinals - Daily Podcast On The St. Louis Cardinals - Winn Is Back But The Pitching Problems Continue

Episode Date: April 8, 2025

- Octavio Dotel - Masyn Winn - Offense - Loss To Pittsburgh - Matthew Liberatore - Miles Mikolas - Erick Fedde - Paul Skenes Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms… 🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/podcasts/locked-on-st-louis-cardinals/ Locked On MLB League-Wide: Every Team, Prospects & More 🎧 https://lockedonpodcasts.com/leagues/mlb/ Follow on Twitter/X: @JDSPORTSRADIO Follow the show on Twitter/X: @LO_Cardinals Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Wonderful Pistachios Looking for a snack that’s both delicious and nutritious? Get snackin’ and get crackin’ with the snack that packs a protein punch. Visit WonderfulPistachios.com to learn more. Just Ingredients Visit JustIngredients.us and use code LOCKEDONMLB for 20% off your order! And for more wellness tips, follow @just.ingredients on Instagram. Supply House Join the TradeMaster program today at SupplyHouse.com/TM and start ordering plumbing, HVAC, and electrical supplies with just a few clicks. Plus, use promo code S-H-5 for 5% off your first order. That’s SupplyHouse.com! Monarch Money Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONMLB at monarchmoney.com for 50% off your first year. Gametime Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime. FanDuel Right now, new customers can get TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA. FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) #ForTheLou #stlcards #mlb #lockedoncardinals Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The St. Louis Cardinals have lost four in a row, but there have been some positives, including the resurgence of shortstop base and win. You are Locked on Cardinals, your daily St. Louis Cardinals podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. Hey there, Cardinals. I'm J.D. Hafford and I'm your host for Lockdown Cardinals, part of the Lockedon Podcast Network, covering your team every day. You can follow me on X at JD Sports Radio as well as the podcast at L1 underscore Cardinals.

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Thomas Govane from Redwood Rance.com is with us here today. We've got a lot to cover. First thing we want to get to, kind of some breaking news that has kind of surfaced coming from the Dominican Republic. Concerning Octavio Dotel, former Cardinals reliever, what can you tell us about this situation, Thomas? Yeah, I woke up this morning to saw a report. There's a person who sent a message in our Redwood-Drant's group chat that Dutel was at a nightclub last night and the roof collapsed. Reports were that he was missing. Hector Gomez just tweeted out that he was rescued.

he's alive, he's well. I put a story up on Redwood Rance for some more information, but he is alive and well right now. So that's good news, at least. But yeah, some scary moments there. It was him and actually a couple of other players, but I think Henry Blanco was

one of them that was that too. Interesting stuff. So glad to hear that at least they're safe. I don't know what the rest of the story entails, but you guys can check that out at Redbirdrance.com. I'm sure Thomas will keep that, get get that updated for you if more information comes out.

Moving on to closer to home things, the Cardinals, not going so well right now, but it isn't, and then not everything is negative, okay? There are some positives to take away from this. And one of the things that we want to point out is the resurgence of Mason win. Last 19 at bats over the last five games,

pretty darn good, Thomas. What do you got for us? and what's going on if Mason went. Yeah, he went the first five games without a hit. And Derek Gould wrote a story on April 1st that Wynn was getting close. He went himself said it's getting close. It's getting close to being something scary. And it has been pretty scary since then.

His slash line is now 243, 33, 33, 324. After not recording a single hit in his first five games, he's dropped his strikeout rate to 31%. His line drive rate has doubled. his ISO has gone up quite a bit, and his WRC plus went from minus 41 in the first five games. Which is bad. That is bad.

Yeah, 100's average. So when you get to the negatives, that's when you know you're struggling. It's now at 95, so he's essentially a league average hitter. He's really turned it around quite a bit. His power is coming into it. He had his first home run last night. It's been nice to see after the concerns in spring in the first week or so of games. Yeah, and hitting force.

74 over his past five games, second only to Brennan Donovan, who has also been on a tear right now. It's at 500 over the last five games. But yeah, and everybody does this. And I'm as guilty as that everybody is that, you know, you kind of, there's a part of you that just starts to freak out a little bit when you see somebody struggle and struggle. We're doing it right now still with Wilson Contreras. Everybody's concerned. Like, what's wrong with Wilson? Oh, my gosh.

She's terrible now. What happened to him? It's just part of this thing called baseball. There are these peaks and valleys, and some of these guys are going to go ice cold at times. It just happens. And then there's going to be moments where pitchers can't get these guys out. And it's just one of those things where it's really tough for this society,

I think, right now, because we're so like instant, instant, that when it comes to baseball, and, you know, he hate using Mo's words of patience all the time, but you really do have to have a lot of patience in this game because things are just going to go roller coaster for everybody. Nobody just hits 350 every, you know, all, every month, and it just stays that way. The whole, that never happens.

Even the best ones, like each row, he's going to have moments where he couldn't buy a hit. It just is what it is. And I feel like sometimes as fans, we got to, we got to remember that. Yeah. It means a game of failure. If a guy gets a hit, one out of every three, he's a Hall of Fame. So when you see someone struggling in 10 games, it's a slump. It's something to keep an eye on.

But it's a very long season. There's lots of time for these guys to rebound and Mason wins showing up these last five games. Yeah. And the thing with Basin, too, like you mentioned, spring training, it was ugly there too. And it was ugly to start the season. And you're just like, wow, this is really taking a while to get him out of it. but now here we are, and he looks like the guy that we had last year at the top of the order. We'll see if he moves him around at all at some point, maneuvering the lineup a little bit.

But, I mean, there's really not a need to when you look at the overall stats. You know, this team is still number one overall in batting average at 297. They're first in OBP, their second in slugging, second in OPS as a team behind only the Yankees. did lose Ivan Herrera for at least four weeks with the bone bruise. And that was a really freaky situation there. And I don't know if you picked up on it in the first game against Boston when he ran through at first base. And he had like a little hitch, a little giddyup. When he went through, you know, ran through first base, stayed in the game.

But at first I was just like, oh, that he did he tweak his hammy or something? comes back for the games, you know, on the Sunday. And, you know, he looked weird after he ran all the way to third. And then all of a sudden he's getting helped off the field. And I'm just like, how did it escalate so bad just like that? It was really freaky. My first thought was that it was something with his Achilles and it was something horrible. We hear bone bruise at least four weeks.

What are your thoughts on the Yvonne Herrera injury? our catchers just cannot catch breaks early in the year with freaky injuries. You had Contreras last year with the fractured forearm. You've got Herrera this year at the bone bruise. It's definitely going to be a hit to the offense. I mean, he was behind Lars Nupar. He was probably our second best all-around offensive guy. He had an argument to be the best on the team at this point.

There's going to be a drop-off when you get to Paix's. But to be honest, Pedro Paix has not been a slacker offensively either to start the year. And he seems to have a good rapport with the pitching staff. his defense is marginally better than Herrera's. There's going to be a drop-off, but with Mason Lynn coming back up offensively, Brendan Donovan, as you mentioned, I don't think that will feel the offensive hit quite like we did last year when Contreras went down. I mean, nobody around Contreras was hitting last year.

At least this year, you've got four other guys who are serviceable offensively. I mean, Nolan Aronado's is on a heater so far to start the year. It stinks. It'll be tough, but the good news it's only a month, and it seems to be that everybody around him is still hitting well. Yeah, it's just an unfortunate thing, you know, to have this guy who, you know, offensively, sky might be the limit with them. You know, we saw glumptons of it last year and he was my guy coming into the season.

I was just like, if there's a guy on this roster that's going to make some noise nationally, that people like around the country didn't, didn't know. They weren't aware of who Ivan Herrera was. I was like, Herrera is the guy. I was like, just look at him. He just looks dangerous at the plate. early on in the season, Fort Dingers, 11 RBA out. Like he was hammering the ball.

And, you know, it's going to be a bummer. It's going to be a bummer, that's for sure. But again, there are some positives with the fact that now you're going to see Pedro Pahas, maybe not the offensive numbers, but certainly a guy that the pitching staff has grown to love. And they're going to need some help because this pitching staff has been poop. Thomas has been awful so far. We're going to take you back to last night's game.

start by Matthew Libertor and then we'll get into making fun of our pitching staff here in just a few moments as we can send you with Thomas Govain from Redbirdrance.com on Locked on Cardinals. When it comes to fueling your body, quality matters, and that's why Just Ingredients is changing the game with clean, high-quality products designed to support better health and peak performance. Just Ingredients offers an NSF-certified line of protein powder. They'll get you the electrolytes.

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leaving comments on YouTube as well as on next. Anytime you want, the feedback is always welcome and encouraged. Thomas Govane from Redbirdrance.com. Joining us here today, we're going to get a lot of comments on this stuff because as much as me and you want to stay positive about things, Let's be honest, things aren't great right now. The Cardinals have lost four in a row, and all of this really has to do with the pitching.

Pitching, pitching, pitching, you know, good pitching beats good heading. That's the old saying, right? Well, we are learning on a daily basis, Thomas, that good hitting also beats the snod out of mediocre to bad pitching as the Cardinals pitching staff continues to be beaten to a pulp day in and day out since the series against the Minnesota Twins back at Bush Stadium. Last night, the Cardinals fall in Pittsburgh by a score of eight to four behind Matthew Libertador making his second start of the season. There's some good and there's some bad with what we saw from Libby last night.

Good news, six and a third eddings, considering what happened in Boston and how like not into games, the starting pitching went. Like they were just, they were gone. Nobody made it through to the fifth. Six of the third innings was something the team needed. Okay, that's a good, not bad there. Five runs on eight hits, including a home run. It's not good, not even remotely.

Seven strikeouts. You like that. You noticed that Libby did settle in after giving up those first four runs against him. So looking through our Cardinals lenses, you're like, oh, well, look, look how good he was here for a couple of innings. but he still gave up five runs on eight hits and six in the third inning. So just because he had a couple of good innings in between there, doesn't mean, you know, it was a really good outing, you know, and as good as the Cardinals' offense has been,

that's not going to give your team a real good chance to win. What were your thoughts on Matthew Levertor's start and what are you seeing from him good and bad? The strikeouts are reassuring. You needed some innings out of a starter. in the game, and especially after the Boston doubleheader, and he gave you that six and the third. Man, he just cannot get right-handed batters out.

It's been a thing for his whole career, which is why I think he really would have thrived in a bullpen role. Marmal could have used him primarily against lefties. It would have been his sweet spot there. He just cannot figure out a way to get right-handed batters out, and that really showed last night against the pirates. His curveball looks pretty good. His velocity was a little bit low.

was sitting around 94, 93, but he just couldn't get the spots right. A lot of balls thrown out of the zone down in the bottom. And you can tell what the game plan was for Pittsburgh. They were swinging early because that's one of the reasons why he was able to last six in a third innings is because the pirates weren't waiting around. Like they were swinging first pitch, second pitch. As soon as he tried to get aggressive and get something over, they were hacking. You mentioned the splits between left-handed and right-handed.

right-handed hitters are batting 3-42 against Matthew Libertura this year. They are 14 to 41, got the home run that was last night, three doubles, seven runs scored. Left-handers are hitting zero against Matthew Libertor. All right. So there's something going on here, right? And it's something that we talked about. You and I, when the season started, we're like, I mean, that's why he was really good in the bullpen because you could pick the spot. There you could use him.

So if he was going to face two lefties and a righty, odds were, he was going to get two out of three of those guys out. Now people, the other teams are like, okay, you got left hand and Matthew Libertsoor coming to the mound. Okay. Every right handed dude on our on our bench, let's go. Get into that lineup. And the guys that he got out last night were the left handers. It wasn't the righties. Like they continue to beat them.

And when we brought this up in the offseason, we're like, well, if you're going to do this, like, well, if you're going to do this, like, Did he figure something out? And, you know, he seemed pretty confident that he had figured some stuff out on how to get the righties out. Clearly, he wasn't being truthful there because it ain't working. Whatever, whatever they're trying is not working, whether it's not getting the cutter inside onto the right handers hands or whatever it is. But they were smoking that first pitch fastball last night. And it was rough. And it's going to continue to be rough until he figures out a way to get these guys out, just like he said.

So there are positives, but like I can't keep sitting here and go, well, it's not as bad as it looks. No, it is what it is, right? Eight hits, five runs. Like, it is what it is. He got beat again. So something they're going to have to figure out if they're going to continue to put them into the rotation. I don't know how long the runway is for Matthew Liberty. They made it sound like it's infinite.

Like he's a starter, you know? It'd be nice because part of the problems that's going on in the bullpen, too, is lack of strikeouts. And that's something Libby can do. And you took that weapon away and stuck it into the rotation instead. One of the reasons why me and you were very skeptical about moving him to the rotation in the first place. All right. Let's talk about some good stuff. How about your boy, Joelle Pozo?

All right. Now, you and I looked it up and we could not find a nickname for this guy. All right. a very thick, very meaty catcher, Joel, Pozo, Bozo the clown. So I came up with Pozo the Round. Do you think

he will be offended by that name? Because there's no way he can hide it, right? Like that you are who you are, brother. If someone called me Pozo the Round, I think I'd have a problem with it. So you might want something else. If anybody else is a creative mind to come up with the nickname for him, go for it, let us know.

We'll run with it. But I guess for now, we're sticking with Pozo the rounds. Or we just call it Pozo, man. That's just kind of cool. Yeah, Pozo. I like that. It was the first place. I liked it.

When they announced that he was getting called up and so I started doing my research, I'm like, this dude used to slug in the minor league. Triple A, like the last four years, he's been outstanding. And we get to see him hit his first home run as a Cardinal last night. What did you think of Pozo not only at the plate, but behind the plate? How did you feel he did as a catcher? Yeah, first of all, he's got a fantastic story. If you look back, Redbird Rain said something go up today.

The athletic had something from a few years back. If you have a few minutes just to read his story, how he came here, his struggle with the Rangers, it's a fantastic background. He's a backup catcher, so I'm not going to put too much stock into what he's doing, but it's awesome. He got a home run. I think, I don't remember who said it, but his first career home run with the Rangers was in his first at bat with them, and he comes back and he hits one for us, too. so we had like 1,300-something days between home runs. All he does is that dangerous, brother. That's what he does.

Right. It's what Pozo does. Yeah, I mean, he's a backup catcher, and he hits home run. So it's exciting. It's one of the bright spots from last night's game. Yeah, like, it was good to see him. And, you know, in that collision with Wilson Contreras, you know, first I'm like, you got to be kidding me.

We have our other catcher injured, our other catcher. And, you know, like, it was like, oh, gosh, this is a clown show right now. and after they were both okay, and you saw a posto just take a glance down at Wilson. Wilson's laughing. They're like, I know, I know I probably should have got out of the way. But it was good to see that both of them were okay. Mentioned that Brennan Donovan continues to be on a heater.

Three more hits last night. Brennan Donovan is, I mean, he's on fire right now. Thomas, this has been a lot of fun to watch so far, seeing him take it bats. Yeah, this is the Donnie that we all wanted to see. You put him in the three spot behind Newpar and Contreras. I think it was you who mentioned. It's a reset for on base.

So it goes Newpar with on base and just general hitting Contreras power and you reset back to Donnie with some on base there too. He's found his stroke. It seems to be it's nice to have them there in the three spot right before the power hitters of Burley and Nato and Jordan Walker. Yeah. And Wilson Contreras last night, not a great night. continues to look more like Pedro Serrano from Major League, whatever is going on with the curveball.

Like he cannot figure it out, which is so weird. You know, we mentioned Mason Wynn having his struggles in spring training. The one guy that had no struggles whatsoever, and it looked like he was just going to light the world on fire coming out of spring training, was Wilson Contrares.

Like everything he hit was like 110 miles an hour off the bat. Everything will look great. And so far this year, he's been one of the worst hitters in all of Major League Baseball. He's hitting 103. He still doesn't have a dinger. He's got three RBIs. He has struck out 18 times and has only walked twice.

Again, we preach patience. We are only a couple of weeks into this thing. We do believe Wilson Guterres is going to be fine. But for whatever reason, and they keep mentioning it in the telecast, that he's just not picking up the spend. Yeah, his last at bat, though, they just threw nothing but breaking balls, and he could not keep up with them. He seems lost behind the plate. They're not picking up the spin. Yeah, and when Wilson is, like, he looks like he's never hit a baseball in his life when he isn't on.

Like, we've seen this over the last couple of years with him where he gets into these funks, and it's like he's not even close. Like, he's not even, you know, a competitive at that. I think fans are getting frustrated with the fact that it's, that he keeps getting put in the number two hole while he looks this bad. And I completely understand that because, you know, if I see somebody who's struggling this bad, but I wanted to get him out, I just slide him down the order a little bit. Like, you know, this is, this is, don't, I don't think Wilson's going to take offense to being

moved down to the order when he looks this bad right now. Like, you know, scoge somebody else up. Maybe swap Mason went out with him and move country towards down. Yeah, or Walker, yeah, just to give it a different. look and just kind of like, well, Wilson, just calm down. You're not going to bench him, which is what some people are already saying,

like, get him out of here. Same people who probably, who were trying to send Mason wind down to AAA after a week of basically. Yeah, right. Are those guys, but I just don't understand why not massaging the lineup a little more to, you know, keep your hotter hitters a chance of getting more at bats during

the game than somebody who's as ice cold as Wilson Contreras. We're going to talk, about these pitching issues. We got to get into what's going on with the rotation. Yeah, we're going to talk about Miles Michaelis because Thomas Govain is a huge fan. And we're also going to get into a little Paul Skeen's talk as well. It is Paul Skeens night at P&C Ballpark. Maybe more than 500 people will show up for the game tonight compared to what we saw last night. So we'll get into all of that coming up on Lockdown Cardinals. Nothing better than catching an MLB game live. You get

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You can find Locktime Fantasy Baseball on YouTube or wherever you listen to your podcast. Thomas Govain from Redmond Rance.com joining us here again today. Let's talk about this pitching staff. You want to start with Miles Michaelis and just kind of get it out of the way, Thomas, because Miles Michaelis, I mean, there's not a whole lot to say. Like, he's been one of the worst pitchers in baseball for a couple of years. Every once in a while, you'll see him come out and have a pretty nice game.

Against the Angels at his first start. Not a bad game. at all. It was like a two-hitter. Like, you're like, oh, okay. Then you saw what happened in Boston, and it was something I talked about, like, you could just feel it. You could just tell the way the momentum was with Boston after Helsley's meltdown in the first game that, oh, boy, look who's starting the night, Michaelis, at Fenway, one of the best offensive parks in Major League Baseball. And all they did was punish the green monster and the baseball.

and over and over and over. People are wondering, why is Miles Michael still on this scene? Do you have a good answer for them, Thomas, because that's what they want to know. Yes, it's Josh Jacobs, our site editor, wrote about this. It's the sunk cost fallacy. We're paying him $15 million. Is it $18 million this year?

Whatever it is. It's far too much. I believe it's 17.5 is where we're right. So we're paying him that much money. It may as well pay him to lose some games for us. his 81 pitches he had the other night. He got only two swings and misses. It's only two more than me and you.

I think I could throw like 65 maybe right now, and I would imagine I could probably get three swings and misses with that. He's just not there right now, and he hasn't been there for three years. We've been paying him $55 million. Three years we've been dealing with that. Yeah, $55 million to be just a little. a little bit better than the worst pitcher in baseball over the time, Patrick Corbyn.

And I don't know. We're keeping him here because we're paying him. That's all I have to say. Yeah. I wrote back to somebody. I was like, there's 17.5 million reasons why they're still throwing him out there. But he sucks, man. Like, that's the thing.

It's like, so you screwed up. You gave money to the wrong guy. Can we not just move on in our lives? And again, we're going to preach patience here because it's, the first, you know, two starts of the season. And, you know, last year, it still blows my mind that he led the team in quality starts last year. I like, I don't know how that even happened because when you throw 32, when you throw

32 starts and they just make you eat innings, you're bound to run into some quality starts every once in a while. Yeah, but like, I mean, how many six innings with, if he gave me six innings and only gave up three earned runs over and over, he's like an all star. Like, that's like outstanding stuff. So like I go back and I see this. I'm like, I don't remember all of these that where he was good. When did they happen?

And it's because the games like you saw in Boston just stand out so much where like when he's bad, he's really bad. Like where it is legitimately batting practice for the other team against him. And it's and it's painful to watch. And it always seems to come at the worst time too. Like, oh yeah, we got a double header and your bullpen's taxed. Here comes Mike. Nicholas. Go get two innings for us.

This is where he's going to drop a bomb of, you know, just of being terrible. And like the one time where you needed him to go a little bit longer, like Ali had no choice. He was just like, I can't leave this guy out here anymore. This is embarrassing. So that's why, though, like Thomas said, it's because they're paying him. This is the last year. And they're going to give you the excuse that buddy eats innings. the stats show that he eats innings.

He's going to be out there. I think I'm on board with everybody else where it's like, I would rather see Michael McGreevy or Quinn Matthews or almost anybody else pitching every fifth day to Miles Michaelis at this point. But that's what's going on. Eric Fetty, really good in his first start. Not so good in Boston.

Never look comfortable on the mound. That does happen from time to dime. Your thoughts on Eric Fetty. where are you as far as worried about what he's doing so far? Not so much. The price in his contract alone makes me a little bit less worried. He's a fraction of the cost of Michael's, but he showed last year his revamped pitch mix, did him well. Like you said, it could just be a bad start for him. I'm not overly worried about him if he keeps doing this and he keeps on getting five, six earned runs against him. That's when the concern's going to start going. But he's our

number two pitcher right now in the rotation. He can repeat what he had in his first start. Good for him. That's all we need. Yeah, Palante, his start, that was one where I thought it was, he was, he was better than what the final way. He couldn't go along, wasn't very efficient. But the Red Sox were taking some really good at bats off of like just constantly battling. And, you know, it happens from time to time. But I wasn't overly concerned with him either. I thought, I thought Palante was fine. It's just, you know, you want to get five, six innings out of these guys all the time. But, you know, sometimes the other team is just tougher. And the Boston Red Sox, Let's not forget, like they spent a lot of money this offseason and had a very good lineup. So it's not like, you know, they got pummeled by the Marlins or something like that, somebody who didn't go out and isn't just loaded with, you know, a bunch of sluggers. That's what made last night's game against the Pirates so disheartening is you give up, you know, eight runs to a Pirates team, which, you know, is still rolling out Tommy Fam. And it's still rolling out in Andrew McCutcheon and guys that,

These are not sluggers. Joey Bart is tearing you to pieces. Like, you can't have that. That just can't happen. Bulpin-wise, who scares you the most out there? Fernandez, King, or Roycroft right now? Ryan Fernandez, because he was supposed to be a seven-thinning guy for us, and he just doesn't have it. Chris Roycroft, you can send him down whenever you want.

He's not supposed to be a major contributor. John King has always run into a bit of luck with his outings, so he's starting to get what's coming his way. Ryan Fernandez does concern me. Yeah, and at least this year, you know, Rule 5 last year, so you couldn't send them down, at least now, you know, there are options. Like you've got guys, right, I haven't seen how guys like Riley O'Brien have been doing.

Roderoyne years. Roderie Moon, yeah, there's guys because we talked about this spring that, like, wow, man, the Cardinals have a lot of depth if things go sideways in the bullpen. So there are some names down there, and maybe they, maybe they'll start making some moves in the next week or so. We'll see. Paul Skeens tonight on the mound. You've got some fantasy implications here, Tom.

I do. Memory serves. Cardinals beat him twice last year. Am I right? Okay, so he threw three games against the Cardinals. We beat him twice, but his ERA is still 1.3-1, and he had 23 strikeout. Two wins against Paul Skeens. I don't think any other team in the league.

can say that can they? No, I don't think so. I do have them on that fantasy team tonight. I am torn between sitting him just because the Cardinals, A, need a hot game, and B, they do have two wins against him. But then also he's Paul Skeens, so you don't sit him if he's playing. Yeah, you don't bench Paul Skeens. Yeah, it's going to be a tough one tonight. Sunny Gray, Paul Skeens. Sunny Gray was having a pretty decent outing against the Angels until the Grand Slam, which again, like, I just keep saying that I hear myself saying these things. And I'm like, hey, he's pretty good until that keeps happening. All of you guys are all of you guys.

Until a Grand Slam, too. Like, give up a solo shot. So, like, he wasn't good. At the end of the day, it wasn't good enough. So hopefully the boys get some rest. They certainly looked exhausted in the early goings of that game. game like there was no energy whatsoever fluid and i'm not trying to make excuses but it's real if you've ever had to fly from boston to pittsburgh at midnight and land at like three checking into a hotel

after a double header after a double head after getting embarrassed on national tv too so i had a pretty good feeling things weren't going to go so well for them last night hopefully tonight a little extra rest get some of the guys back nato i hope he's feeling better and uh we get these guys back in the lineup and at least put up a fight against Paul Skeens. Again, like you said, yeah, they beat him twice, but I feel like they scored like two runs off of them. They got three runs against them. All you know. Make it three, boys. Here we go. But it should be, at least you get a chance to see one of the best in baseball tonight. We'll see, you know, if this offense, which has been so good and is left-handed heavy, maybe they can get

Paul Skeen some trouble with the new approaches from Bram Brown and company, because So far, it's worked. Even last night with their, you know, they didn't hit double-digit hits for the first time of the season. Man, I had everything. I was hoping for that. I had a whole article written about it. And then Contreras strikes out. I just trash it.

Yeah, it was close. And some of those hits, like, you know, like Frazier playing second base for the pirates, like took a couple of hits away. So, I mean, they were right there. So, I don't know. We'll see what happens tonight. That's why they play the game. So, Thomas, anything you're working on that the boys and girls should be aware of? I've got something about Mason Wynn and his resurgence.

These last five games, I just had one go out about Octavia Dothel. Those are pretty much it that I have for right now, though. All right. We'll go check them out at RedbirdRance.com. Thomas always updating the blog and getting you the latest scoop on what's going on with the birds. Appreciate you, as always, Thomas. And I hope your fantasy baseball team sucks tonight because of all skiing. is because of the Cardinals taken and the rest of your team can do fine.

I have known Arnado too. Let's just get Arnado to run homegrown off of schemes. And then schemes had six clean-in-ins. I'm just rooting against schemes, really. Yeah. The rest of your team can be awesome. It's fine. We're not in the same league.

It's okay. All right, buddy. I appreciate your time. And thank you guys for making Locked on Cardinals. Your first listen every day. If you haven't already, give us a follow. Thomas Govain available on X. I as well, available on X.

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