[Snap Wilson]

Your June 1st Update

Keith Hernadez will remain a Cardinal for the next five (maybe six) years. He'll earn $5 million per year for the next six years, the last year being a team option. He gets a cool million if he wins the NL MVP Award.

Trade! We made trade!
Pittsburgh backstop Rick Dempsey was unhappy in Steeltown, and I figured he would make a good platoon partner with Nolan. Pittsburgh would have taken a pair of dirty sweatsocks for him, but we handed off Dennis Littlejohn instead. They called to make sure the dirty sweatsocks weren't available.

Pirates receive: Dennis Littlejohn, C
Cards receive: Rick Dempsey, C

Rick himself has a good arm and hits better than Littlejohn does.

So... how we doing?
The Cards sit at 26-18, still atop the NL East, still three games on top of Les Expos. That makes us... um... carry the two... 13-13 for the month of May, but playing not so good of late, 4-8 over the past two weeks.

The Expos maintained pace with us. Jerry White (.326/.404/.604), Warren Cromartie (.341/.371/.524) and 'Rock' Raines (.304/.428/.456) are the hitting stars, and they but they have a great young core with Raines, Andre Dawson and Gary Carter, and Tim Wallach sitting on their reserve roster. Vive Les Expos!

In the NL West, the Houston Astros have a five game lead on everyone else. They've got everything. Their top two starters, J.R. Richard and Nolan Ryan are a combined 11-3, and the rest of the rotation--Vern Ruhle, Joaquin Andujar (who I almost went after... loved Joaquin) and Joe Niekro are very solid. Closer Dave Smith is 4-0 with a 1.71 and 10 saves. Jose Cruz (.348/.393/.582) and Terry Puhl (.339/.411/.480) pace their league-leading offense. So yeah, they're good.

The Orioles are a half-game up on the Brewers in the AL East and the Rangers are 2.5 games up on the Royals. Go Royals! I'm shooting for an I-85 series. Don Denkinger will not be allowed on the premises.

Yeah, but who sucks?
Neither the Seattle Mariners (16-32, 16.5) or the California Angels (17-28, 14.0) will be printing playoff tickets this year, barring one heck of a comeback. The Atlanta Braves (17-29, 13.0) are the sad clowns of the NL.

The Yankees are at the bottom of the AL East, but they're only 7.5 games out, so hope springs eternal in the Bronx.

But you want competitive? The entire NL East is breathing down our neck, wit the last place team, the New York Mets, a mere 5.5 games out. A winning streak would be really nice right about now.

So what's wrong with your team?
Well, take a look at the scores over the past two weeks:

@SFN, Loss, 3-5
@LAN, Loss, 5-6
@LAN, Loss, 3-4
@LAN, Loss, 3-8
@SDN, Win, 7-3
vs. SDN, Win, 4-3
vs. SDN, Loss, 3-4
vs. NYN, Loss, 3-9
vs. NYN, Loss, 1-6
vs. NYN, Win, 5-3
vs. MON, Win, 12-11
vs. MON, Loss, 3-5

Our starting pitching is writing checks that our relief pitching can't cash. Here's a rundown of the staff. The first numbers are their season numbers to date, while the second numbers (in parentheses) their totals for May:

Starters
Pete Vuckovich: 5-2, 4.00 ERA (1-2, 5.20 ERA)
Bob Forsch: 5-2, 3.82 ERA (4-1, 3.63 ERA)
John Fulgham: 3-4, 5.40 ERA (2-2, 4.32 ERA)
John Martin: 3-3, 4.89 (1-3, 7.11 ERA)
Sylvio Martinez: 2-2, 3.97 (0-2, 5.14 ERA)

Forschy's been huge for us this month. It would be a complete disaster without him.

Relievers
John Littlefield: 3-3, 2.78 ERA
Jim Otten: 1-0, 3.48 ERA
Donnie Moore: 2-0, 2.84, 5 saves
Tom Tellman: 1-0, 6.10 ERA, 1 save
George Frazier: 0-0, 4.66 ERA, 5 saves
Jim Kaat: 0-0, 3.52 ERA

Tellman has been a disaster, allowing runs in five of his seven appearances, but the rest of the bullpen isn't bad. Our starting pitching is killing us, and I'm not convinced it can be much better than it is now. I don't have any good starters in reserve, either. What's there is pretty much it.

How about the offense?
We're first in OPS (.758) but only fifth in the league in runs scored. Part of it is my problems on the basepaths--I'm sure I lead the league in caught stealings--but the other problem is that we don't hit the longball. Only 20 so far. A look at the position players:

C Joe Nolan: .288/.317/.339
C Rick Dempsey: .222/.276/.333
Both throwing out runners pretty well, Nolan 38%, Dempsey 36%

Keith Hernandez, 1B: .376/.460/.543
Leads the league in OBP and Runs Created/27. An MVP candidate.

Tommy Herr, 2B: .314/.383/.407
He's cooled off a little bit, and I should really stop trying to steal bases with him (8/16), but he's been very solid at the plate and in the field for us. I've moved him up to the #2 spot in the lineup.

Paul Molitor, 3B: .328/.380/.497
A stud. He also enables me to keep a short bench because he can play four positions.

Ozzie Smith, SS: .219/.296/.252
Numbers are slightly below what he actually hit during the 1980 season, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio should be a lot better than it is (17/17). I hold out hope that the game will progress him correctly.

Rickey Henderson, LF: .288/.400/.384
Love the OBP. I've also swiped 17 bases with him (out of 26 attempts), a little more power would be nice.

Dale Murphy, CF: .321/.377/.431
I like the average and the walks (14 in 137 AB), but he only has seven extra-base hits. We need more power coming from his bat.

Leon Durham, RF: .292/.325/.500
He cooled off considerably in May (.244/.263/.372), but he still leads the team in home runs (7) and RBIs (30). In fact, I just realized that he's accounting for over a third of the team's home runs. Yeesh.

Richie Zisk, RF: .312/.365/.355
Good average, really disappointing power.

Next post: Black ink, plus some observations about the game so far.