Mark McGwire, spending the vast majority of the season’s start on the disabled list recovering from off-season knee surgery, was back in the Cardinals’ line-up today!
He went 2 for 3 with a homerun in the 6th inning. He needs 44 more homeruns to reach 600 career HRs, making himself #4 on the all-time list behind Hank Aaron (755 HRs), Babe Ruth (714 HRs) and Willie Mays (660 HRs). McGwire is currently #7 on the all time list and actually only needs 31 Hrs to be #4 on the All-Time list (#4 is currently Frank Robinson with 586 HRs), but why aim low? 600 career HRs is a good number to end the season on.
(Although to reach that by season’s end, Big Mac will have to go yard every 2.5 games. While not impossible, it is unlikely, especially since the big guy won’t be playing every day.)
Ok, so I may have to wait till next year to see him hit homerun #600, I’ll still be counting down.
And BTW - Barry Bonds - yeah you. 26 homeruns in 50 games puts you on pace for 84 homeruns! Slow down! It’s too early to go breaking the single season homerun record. Let the 70 sit for a while so people can appreciate it and cherish it before you go threatening to break it!
While McGwire finally coming back should provide a boost to the Cardinals, it should be noted what great offensive years (so far) they’ve had from Lankford, Drew, Edmonds and (surprisingly) Pujols. I can’t believe how quickly that guy blossomed–I figured he was 2-3 years away. You heard it here first; he’ll have a longer and more distinguished career than Ichiro, who’s getting far more hype right now.
Cardinal fans have been expecting Drew to be a great offensive threat for a while now. When he was first signed on, he was being hailed as the next Mickey Mantle. Now while I wouldn’t go so far as to put him in the same catagory as Mantle, it is nice to see Drew finally showing his potential after a disappointing (partly due to injuries) rookie year, and a lot of platooning last year (Left-handed hitting Drew and right-handed Eric Davis shard the right field all season).
Edmonds of course was expected to perform again as well as he did last year (towards the end of last year’s season, St Louis fans took to chanting “MVP” when he stood at the plate or made a great defensive play). He’s in a bit of a slump now, but he’ll break out of it.
Lankford on the other hand is a steaky hitter - always has been - and is slowing down again. I like him and all, but I don’t think he’s worth the $8 million a year he’s getting paid.
Pujols, on the other hand, is a huge surprise. He barely made the team this spring. In fact he wouldn’t have made it if Bobby Bonilla hadn’t started the season on the DL. Then he started kicking so much ass, when Bonilla came back, John Mabry was released instead of sending the rookie back to the minors. St Louis fans are starting a campaign to write him in at third base for the All-Star ballot this year. Let’s just hope he can keep this up as pitchers start to get a feel for him and begin pitching him differently.
We’re also getting good pitching again this year, with the starting pitching staff’s combined ERA of 3.62. Andy Benes is starting off a little rough, with an ERA over 6, but he’ll settle down and usually pitches well in the second half.
