St. Louis fans have had it pretty rough already this season. The Cards were unable to reach a new deal with Albert Pujols before the season started and are now faced with the pending Apocalypse if Pujols actually leaves in free agency. I'd certainly be nervous if I was a Cards fan but I think they find a way to keep the best hitter in baseball. They can always sell the Arch to zee Germans for some extra cash. Germans like shiny things (I've given up on even trying to use accurate stereotypes). Then their ace, Adam Wainwright, is forced to undergo Tommy John surgery and will miss at least 2011. There goes approximately five wins off of the Cardinals season total. Kyle McClellan had a fine season out of the pen but he's not throwing a 2.27 ERA in the rotation. Sorry I had to break that to you, Kyle's parents.
If matters couldn't get any worse, Nick Punto hit the disabled list with a sports hernia. Don't worry, his projected 0.2 WAR should be back by the end of April and he'll resume his duty of weighing down the right side of the bench.
But then, after going 3-4 with a home run in the opener, Matt Holliday underwent an appendectomy today...
"We’ll make a determination. It could be something like six or seven days, or it could be more," general manager John Mozeliak said shortly before Holliday entered surgery. "We don’t know at this point. We certainly will know more later."Six or seven days seems awfully optimistic. The more realistic timetable appears to be two or three weeks. PECOTA called for a 29 homer, .311/.389/.536 season for Holliday so even missing 15-20 games is a pretty big blow. In house replacements, John Jay and Allen Craig, don't inspire much confidence and I haven't played right field since I was eight and terrified of flying objects. Not that the Cardinals have called me...yet.
