by Bob Priddy, Missourinet contributing editor
(BASEBALL)—Time to play what you’ve been dealt. Trading deadline has come and gone and so have Cardinals’ and Royals’ players. Both teams will be playing out the string, seeing who develops, who has possibilities, or showcasing possible trade bait. Our two teams went different directions last week but they’re really going nowhere for the season. The Royals won seven in a row and are 7-3 in their last ten. The Cardinals went 3-7.
(ROYALS)—-About that seven-game winning streak: It was historic. And there’s a Cardinals angle to it. It’s another example of how baseball is the playground for the figure filberts of the world.
(There are conflicting versions of who the original figure filbert was. One version refers to Al Munro Elias who The New York Times once said, “He ate, slept, dreamed and breathed baseball averages and odd records.” He was the founder of the Elias Sports Bureau, often cited for its collection of arcane records. The other person who is sometimes considered the original statistics nut is Earnest John Lanigan, a sportswriter and baseball historian who pioneered the gathering of statistics about games and players. He wrote the first encyclopedia on the issue.)
Pete Gratoff of the Wichita Eagle has written that the Royals last week became the first team in Major League history to have a winning percentage of less than .300 to win seven games in a row since the 1907 CARDINALS won nine straight, all against the same team—the Boston Doves, that later became the Boston Braves, the Milwaukee Braves and the present Atlanta Braves. The Cardinals finished that year 55-101-2 and finished last in the eight-team American League. The Doves fluttered to a record of 50-90-4, good for seventh.
The Royals now are 36-77, ahead of the A’s who are 32-80.
Who’s hot for the Royals? Bobby Witt Jr., started this week hiting .336 since the start of July (he was at .244 through June). He has 20 homers and 32 steals, becoming the first player in baseball history to go 20/30 in his first two seasons in the Majors. “It’s just me playing the game,” he says.
Who’s not hot for the Royals? Zack Greinke, who fell to 1-12 last week, He has given up 23 homeruns, 13 in the last ten starts. He has averaged five innings in his 22 starts. His most recent win was May 2.
(CARDINALS)—You see it happen in all kinds of situations—businesses, churches, sports—
Someone who has become an institution leaves the scene. The person who comes in next is often unfairly compared to his or her predecessor. Sometimes that person tries to hard to BE that predecessor. And they don’t stay long.
Wilson Contreras admits he was trying to hard at the start of the season. Cardinals’ fans, many of them, were quick to judge him based on Yadiair Molina. He hit .158 in May, .221 in June, and then he says he realized the Cardinals signed him to be himself. And during the month of July he hit .429. Through the first few days of August he was hitting .313 and his season averages are close to his career averages.
Down on the farm, the ‘Birds’ top prospect, Mason Wynn, had to leave a game this past weekend with a minor glute strain. He’s hitting .284 at Memphis with 17 homers and 59 RBIs. He’s 17-19 in stolen bases.
Luken Baker is lighting up opposing pitchers at Memphis. He leads the minor leagues with 37 home runs. He hit .263 during a cup of coffee with the big team earlier this year. The problem is that he’s a first baseman and the Cardinals are well-positioned (so to speak) there. And the Cardinals have a full arsenal of designated hitters.
(FOOTBALL)—This might be one of those years when there’s less talk about the overlapping seasons of baseball and football and more about how great it will be when the football season starts. The Chiefs and the Tigers (and other college teams) are in workouts now. High Schools start soon. Here’s hoping your team takes your mind off of baseball for a while.
ZOOM:
(INDYCAR)—This is turning out to be Kyle Kirkwood’s breakout year. Kirkwood picked up his second IndyCar win of the year, the second of his career, by holding off Scott McLaughlin on the 2.1-mile street course in downtown Nashville.
He beat pole-sitter McLaughlin to the line by about eight-tenths of a second after a late-race restart with a little more than three laps left. The race had been red-flagged after a three-car crash that left no room for racing through one of the turns. Kirkwood got a good jump on the restart and pulled away to a 1.6-second lead after the first lap. But McLaughlin and series points leader Alex Palou rallied to cut the lead in half with one lap left.
McLaughlin was disappointed to finish second in the race for the second year in a row.
Kirkwood started eighth but team strategy early in the race moved him into contention and eventually put him in front for 34 of the race’s 80 laps.
Palou’s third-place finish upped his points lead over Josef Newgarden, who finished fourth, to 84 points. Only four races with 216 possible points remain in the IndyCar season. Next up is a return to the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway next Saturday afternoon.
(NASCAR)—Chris Buescher, who broke a long winless streak at Richmond has made it two in a row, taking the rain-delayed race at Michigan International Speedway. His wins and strong finishes by teammate and part-owner Brad Keselowski have signalled a return to prominence of the former Roush Racing, now Roush-Fenway-Keselowski racing. Keselowski finished fourth.
The closing laps turned into a fierce chase of Buscher by Martin Truex Jr., for the last ten laps. Truex closed with five laps left but couldn’t find a way around Buescher who took away Truex’s driving line down the stretch.
(Formula 1)—F1 is on break. It takes off most of August each year.
(Photo credit: Kirkwood at Indianapolis: Rick Gevers)