Intro to an 11th World Championship Season

That's right, I said it.

It's like a 200-to-1 shot, but I'm taking it.

Before I get to the Cardinals season preview, I will tell a little bit about myself.

My name is Cory Houser and I am currently attending the University of Northern Iowa for a degree in Electronic Media (Broadcasting) with a minor in Journalism. I have a beautiful girlfriend named Ashley, who is also going to UNI in the same fields as I am in. I will graduate in May, she will graduate in May of 2010. For my major, I'm the host of a "hit" on-campus game show entitled "Panther Shout Out," which is basically a variation on the board game "Outburst." It's fun, and it's on YouTube, so check it out. I am also employed at a major Midwest grocery chain called Hy-Vee. I work in the meat department and work pretty much full-time hours for a part-time pay. Yippie-fucking-skippy.

I am a diehard St. Louis Cardinals fan, a Chicago Bulls fan, and a Dallas Cowboys fan.

Speaking of the Cardinals......

Let's get to a preview of their upcoming season.

Somehow, Tony LaRussa (THE BASEBALL GENIUS, :-P) and company managed to finish 10 games above .500 last season with their somewhat shoddy line-up of wannabe pitchers and a surprising season out of Ryan Ludwick, and a not-so-out-of-the-ordinary MVP Caliber season out of the best hitter in the major leagues, Albert Pujols. It wasn't really so much the starting pitching (Lohse was outstanding, and so was Wainy while he was healthy...Looper didn't really pitch like I thought he would, only finishing at .500 [12-12 iirc])...it was the middle relief that kicked our ass. We would have won 10-15 more games had we not blown leads because of pitching. Not only that, our relief had a total of 31 blown saves. THIRTY one.

This year, however, is a different story.

Here is our current starting rotation...note that they are all right-handed:::

1. RHP Adam Wainwright
2. RHP Kyle Lohse
3. RHP Todd Wellemeyer
4. RHP Chris Carpenter
5. RHP Joel Pineiro

It looks pretty solid. If Carpenter can stay healthy, I think this line-up looks really good. Wainwright started 20 games last year and went 12 - 3. Lohse had a great stretch and might have won a Cy Young had he won some games down the stretch. He finished 15 - 6 with a 3.78 ERA. Wellemeyer went 13 - 9 for us and had a 3.71 ERA. Pineiro had a sub-par year, only went 7 - 7 with an ERA over 5 in 25 games he started.

And of course, we really didn't pick up any pitchers in the off-season. We love to not be aggressive and just say, "Eh, this'll work" when the pre-season starts up in March. Now see, this was fine when we had Edmonds, Eckstein and Rolen to help out Pujols. But now we have Schumaker at SECOND BASE (!?!?!?!?!?!). Argh. I'll get to our fielders here in a bit. Now onto our bullpen:

RHP Jason Motte (closer)
RHP Ryan Franklin
RHP Josh Kinney
RHP Kyle McClellan
RHP Brad Thompson
LHP Dennys Reyes
LHP Trever Miller

Motte looked pretty sharp pre-season, hopefully he can bring some of that momentum with him in the regular season. Hopefully we won't have to see him until after the Pirates series is over (if a fucking community college can beat the Pirates, we can fucking beat them). Only two lefties, argh. Again, from the looks of it, we seem to be better than last season, but it's early.

Okay, here's our tentative starting line-up:

1. 2B Skip Schumaker
2. CF Rick Ankiel
3. 1B Albert Pujols
4. LF Chris Duncan
5. RF Ryan Ludwick
6. SS Khalil Greene
7. C Yadier Molina
8. 3B David Freese
9. Pitcher

Yeah, that's right, it says PITCHER in the NINTH spot. Goooooooo Drunkie.

Freese has the third base position for now while Glaus gets better. Which sucks, because Glaus was the leading fielder at his position in ALL of Major League Baseball last season. Wow. And he was good with the bat, too. We'll be hopefully getting him back early June. I hope so.

Now, onto my rant.

Mother fucking.....why didn't we go after a second baseman? Seriously? Or re-sign Aaron Miles, who batted over .300 last year? What the fuck?? No, let's convert ol' Skippy. And I love this quote from LaRusa: "We're looking for Schumaker just to be average at the position." Yeah, just 'Average' wins championships. *sigh* I have a bad feeling we're going to quickly regret this. He's a really good lead-off hitter, I'll give him that. And a decent outfielder. But a converted second baseman last second? Thaaaaaat'll take some time.

Khalil Greene is going to have a coming out season....he batted ove .400 in the pre-season...I'm excited. Our line-up goes pretty deep...I like Ludwick in the 5th spot with Duncan 4th...Duncan looks like he'll be as good as he was in '07. Pujols will be as good as always...maybe a couple more dingers this year...??? We'll see. Ankiel batting second is really good, too. Schumaker-Ankiel-Pujols. Love it.

I won't get to our bench, because, well, I'm tired and I just really don't care right now, lol. But here's my prediction for our season ending record:

90 - 72.

I think we have a decent shot at the wild card, if not the division. Our interleague schedule seems pretty easy, and we only play the Cubs 15 times again this year (more at home than at Wrigley). I think we play the Pirates a good number of times...which is a big plus.

Well then, I think that'll do it for now...I'll post something, eh, tomorrow. Good night everyone, I hope you enjoy reading these. This will be a great season! Welcome back, baseball!

-Cory