Well folks, there you have it. I really thought that this current losing skid had to stop at some point and that maybe somewhere along the way I'd have something inspiring to say about keeping our chins up, soldiering on, staying the course and maybe, oh I don't know, not SUCKING anymore. Unfortunately, this hasn't happened yet and I could no longer in good faith continue to ignore the stretch and the glaring possibility that it may not end.
In the wake of the whole Rick Ankiel/HGH scandal, the St. Louis Cardinals have lost seven straight games, while previously unstoppable Ankiel has gone an embarrassingly anemic 1 for 23. The Birds have slumped to five games out of first place. And that dazzling rise above .500? Yeah, much like the season, that's history as well as we've sunken to six games under.
So my question here is, WHAT THE @#$! happened? (Obviously aside from the starting rotation returning to shiteous form. Christ. What's wrong with these guys?) I mean, I'm not a total idiot. I had no grand illusions that we wouldn't eventually face plant and knock ourselves into obscurity. The big race to see who isn't the biggest loser in the NL Central is and has been a joke all along. Had we won that illustrious prize it would have proved nothing except that, hey, even ridiculously crappy teams can go to the playoffs! Even through our hot streak in August it at no point really seemed like we were a well conditioned machine clicking along efficiently at a calm, controlled and steady pace. No, it seemed much more like a drunk guy at a shooting range. The bullets were squeezing out quickly, furiously and erratically, yet inexplicably they were hitting the target more often then not. There was no logic or skill to it. We are not and have not been a good baseball team all season. Still, it's disappointing to go out like this, just as I predicted we would, in the shadow of the Ankiel allegations. It really was the final straw for a beaten and battered Cardinal Nation. Players, management and fans alike pretty well threw up their hands and said, "screw it, this ain't worth it. We suck, man." I'd hoped I was wrong and that the media storm wouldn't get inside Ankiel's fragile psyche. Obviously, one thing he's not developed in his incredible comeback is thick skin. Hell, he's so sensitive to criticism I swear that one "your mama's so fat" joke and this guy'd be curled up in the dugout sucking his thumb. I realize I have a tendency towards the dramatic, but I think that in this case it's warranted. I really don't envision us rebounding from this. In fact, at this point I'm not even sure I want us to. I've had enough heartache this summer (mixed, I suppose, with just enough pleasure to keep me from weeping openly,) that I'm almost happy to pack it in for the year. Who knows, though. Maybe it's all just a giant coincidence. Maybe we're just going through another slump and it has nothing to do with Ankiel. Maybe we've still got a late season spark left in us that'll at the very least allow us to go out on a high note. But somehow I doubt it.
So in that spirit, GO MILWAUKEE!! I mean, someone's got to win this division, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment