Cardinals top Royals, 4-2

The Cardinals beat the Royals, 4-2. It was a pretty uninteresting baseball game. We had to listen to Steve Physioc and it took more than three hours to complete, so I guess you could say it was more painful than anything else.

St. Louis jumped on Mike Minor, who Dayton Moore hilariously said he “didn’t want” to trade. Could he have meant that nobody else wanted to trade for him? Because man, that would make way more sense. Minor gave up four runs in five innings, giving up seven hits and ballooning his ERA to 5.39.

Paul Goldschmidt hit a first-inning home run right after Steve Physioc mentioned how he hadn’t hit one in two weeks. A couple innings later, he was talking about how whoever was up for St. Louis was in an 0-for-18, and the hitter promptly slapped a hit. Facing Mike Minor is the cure to all hitting woes!

Seriously, though, Minor is terrible. Jackson Kowar should be in the major leagues starting over this guy. Play for the future. Considering how good Daniel Lynch has looked since returning to the big leagues, I’m almost certain Kowar wouldn’t be worse than Minor.

The Royals’ offense was defeated by Adam Wainwright for what feels like the 200th time in my lifetime. They really were only interesting in one inning, as four of their seven hits came in the sixth. Carlos Santana singled, Ryan O’Hearn tripled (thanks to multiple defensive misplays), Hunter Dozier singled, and Emmanuel Rivera singled to pull the Royals within 4-2, but Jarrod Dyson and Cam Gallagher made outs to end the frame.

Andrew Benintendi pinch hit, so I guess there’s that. It was good to see after his ugly injury just a few days ago.

How ridiculous is it that Edward Olivares didn’t play in this game? All he did was hit three home runs in less than a week and Mike Matheny was all “nah, let’s throw roll with an outfield of Dozier-Dyson-O’Hearn. None of those three should even be on a big-league roster, let alone playing ahead of a guy that’s hit three home runs in a week. Last night Jeffrey Flanagan said that the Royals have always been “divided” on Olivares. What the hell does that mean? THEY TRADED FOR HIM! And he’s, for the moment with Benintendi not 100%, the best outfielder in the organization! PLAY HIM!

Here are the batting averages of the players that hit 3-8 today for the Royals: .232, .234, .194, .235, .231, .162. Salvador Perez was scratched, but still, holy lord is that pathetic. I want them to lose to get a high draft pick, but this is a team that is TRYING to win baseball games. Dayton Moore thought this roster was going to contend heading into the year! Bless his heart.

Let’s talk solutions, because people complain when I whine and don’t give them. Here’s what I’d do.

I’d ship Hunter Dozier’s lousy, awful, hitting-.194-despite-playing-every-day-for-four-months ass to Omaha. That two-week stretch where he hit better is LONG gone, as he’s hitting .139 in the last two weeks. With an eye-popping -2.4 WAR, he is far and away the worst player in baseball, statistically. Emmanuel Rivera can play third base. Dozier already sucks at hitting, yet they put him in the outfield, where he sucks at defending, because they’re dying to keep him in the lineup. Just imagine if they had that sort of patience with Olivares!

I’d DFA Jarrod Dyson and call up literally any baseball player on earth that’s not 36 years old and could potentially have a shot at helping this team in the future to take his spot.

I’d DFA Ryan O’Hearn and get Nick Pratto up here. Why not? Seriously, why not at this point? O’Hearn is hitting under .200 since he was recalled in late June. You think Pratto would be worse?

I’d throw Mike Minor to the bullpen (if leaving him locked in a St. Louis arch elevator isn’t an option), DFA Wade Davis (why on EARTH is this still a thing), and get Jackson Kowar up here to make some big league starts. If he’s better? Great. If he still sucks? Well, he’s gotta learn.

A rotation of Keller-Bubic-Kowar-Lynch-Hernandez wouldn’t be good in 2021, but it would at least feature five guys age 26 and younger that could potentially help this team in the future. This season is lost. Let’s see what they’ve got! We don’t need to see Mike Minor’s gray beard go give up five runs every fifth day when somebody signficantly better with way higher upside could do it instead.

The record is 47-61. Same time tomorrow for another game.