After yesterday's fiasco against the Pirates, the Cardinals HAD to do something about Jason Isringhausen. It seemed like the choices were going to be an outright release or to DFA him and hope he accepted a demotion to AAA. Instead, they placed him on the disabled list with either a week-old cut on his hand or an arthritic hip that he's been cleared to pitch with, depending on which story you believe. From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

"They found some infection [in the hand]," Cards manager Tony La Russa said when asked about Izzy's injury. "There's an issue there and it affects his grip some, but that definitely is not what anybody is pointing at as his problem. It's an irritation. He would not have been available for a few days."

The move to disable Isringhausen, La Russa said, is "being realistic. It's being creative."

It is being creative, but that's not going to help the Cardinals any. I assume the reason behind this move is to allow Isringhausen to make a few "rehab" appearances, which will let him pitch in the minors without having to DFA him, but I think his problems run a lot deeper than something that a few AAA appearances can fix. I guess that's a bridge the Cardinals will cross when they reach it.

While watching the first two Pirates/Cardinals games earlier this week, one of the main topics of conversation was Jason isringhausen. The Cardinal announcers constantly wondered how Izzy would handle his first outing in front of the Busch faithful after his demotion and were puzzled that Tony La Russa didn't use him in last night's easy 5-1 win over the Pirates. I didn't see today's game, but I can tell you that La Russa chose today to put Isringhausen in the game with a 5-4 lead in the eighth inning. Things did not go well.
Isringhausen started the eighth by walking Doug Mientkiewicz. That's always a bad sign. Ronny Paulino followed with a single, then Isringhausen threw away Chris Gomez's bunt to let a run score and tie the game up. La Russa left him out there to face pinch-hitter Jason Bay. That was a huge mistake, as Bay took Izzy way deep to left and suddenly a 5-4 Cardinals lead was turning into an easy Pirate win.

Even though it wasn't the ninth inning, Isringhausen picked up his sixth blown save of the year with his implosion on the mound today. I don't know why La Russa put him into a close game this afternoon, but I can't imagine he's going to think about doing it again any time soon.

Sure, the Cardinals-Cubs rivalry is dead to the rest of the country. But those charming Midwesterners still think that their hatred of each other is endearing and/or anyone else still cares. So, I say, let them have their fun. We'll laugh at their expense regardless. Like this Cubs fan, who goes into Cardinal territory and volunteers to put on a blindfold and race a Redbird in a jalapeno eating contest. That's just not going to work out well for anyone.



But, hey! At least the Cubs beat them in the race to win a World Series title. Oh. Right. Nevermind.

Via Home Run Derby

I've always been one for letting my employer decide when I'm no longer capable of doing my job, but Eric Gagne and Jason Isringhausen apparently feel differently, being "honest" enough to let their managers know they're no longer worthy of the closer role. (Update: Gagne can apparently close again!) Either way, not a lot of confidence. What they did is rare in the sense of being voluntary, but it certainly underlies the basic fantasy notion that saves are easy to come by.

In Milwaukee, if you're looking for saves, you actually love Gagne flip-flopping; Ned Yost will probably go back to the well with him, and you'll have an easier time going after the guy who will probably end up getting the saves. Salomon Torres, Guillermo Mota and David Riske are the official closer by committee. (The reality is they shouldn't have let Francisco Cordero walk, but that's neither here nor there at this point). I've been saying that Riske is my guy since early in the season, but in fairness, he hasn't pitched perfectly. Then again, neither has Torres, so I'm sticking by my guns here and saying Riske ends up with the most saves in the Milwaukee pen this year (unless Yost does something cr-r-r-r-azy and puts Carlos Villanueva in the spot).

The Cardinals end of things appears to be a little more cut and dry, in the sense that Ryan Franklin is the new go-to guy from the bullpen in St. Louis. Russ Springer and Randy Flores are apparently in the mix as well to a degree, but when you look at Springer's walk count -- five! -- since Izzy went down, it's hard to imagine Tony La Russa trusts him. Plus, Franklin is actually locking down the ninth. And the guy you want to grab for your fantasy league.

What a terrible time to be a relief pitcher. We're only a month and a half into the season and already people are being pulled out of position for poor performance, scolded for showing emotion, and blamed for managerial jobs being put on the line. The worst examples of this have been St. Louis's Jason Isringhausen and Milwaukee's Eric Gagné.

In today's Dugout, we discuss the many reasons how and why St. Louis's Jason Isringhausen and Milwaukee's Eric Gagné are the worst examples. Oh boy, are they a couple of bad examples.

(Oh yeah, and if you don't get Izzy's screen name, say his last name out loud slowly.)

More, after the jump.

One thing is clear: it's not a good time to be a closer in the National League Central. After an adventurous week (read: two blown saves) last week, Jason Isringhausen asked manager Tony La Russa to remove him from the closer's job on Friday night and yesterday, La Russa complied. Here's what Izzy had to say about things:

"It's just something that needs to be done," Isringhausen said. "It wasn't about them. It was about me."

Isringhausen ripped his performance after allowing the Milwaukee Brewers a two-run rally in Friday night's 4-3 Cardinals loss at Miller Park. Isringhausen described it as "pitching like a second-grader."

Clearly, when a pitcher is in the mental state that it sounds like Isringhausen's in, it's time to find another closer. Until he pulls himself together, La Russa has said he's going to go with a closer-by-committee, mixing and matching guys like Ryan Franklin and Randy Flores. I'll admit that I think this is the way to go, because match-ups should dictate who pitches a lot more than an arbitrary "closer" designation, but for some reason it rarely seems to work out. Still, if the Cardinals are going to keep their unlikely hot start going, they can't afford a guy like Isringhausen taking the ball at the end of the game until he straightens himself out.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

St. Louis Cardinals (23-15) at Milwaukee Brewers (17-19) - 2:05 PM ET

Milwaukee, already known for its consumption of beer and brats, has been the Tums capital of America this weekend. First, Jason Isringhausen blew a save on Friday after having the Brewers at two outs and nobody on in the ninth inning ... which led to Jason being demoted from the closers role. Then the very next day, there was Eric Gagne blowing yet another save, which was Gagne's ... oh I've lost count this season, how many blown saves is that? Gotta be between 50 and 80 (actually, he only blew a tie game in the ninth, but Gagne did get the loss). And that led Gagne to muse that maybe he should go the same path as Isringhausen. So can anybody here close today's game? Hey, at least extra innings will be fun.

It's hard to believe, but Albert Pujols is playing this season with a high grade tear in the ulnar collateral ligament of his throwing arm. His .342/.494/.575 line certainly helps hide it, even if the hyper-critical would say that his power isn't quite where it used to be. Intent on keeping his star healthy, Tony La Russa said before the season he'd try to get Pujols regular downtime. Unfortunately, it's proving harder than he expected.

With a day game against the Rockies today, it seemed like an ideal time to give Pujols some downtime. Except that the Rockies threw a lefty and benching Pujols against a lefty is "not my favorite thing to do," according to La Russa. It's clearly not his favorite thing to do: Pujols has started every Cardinals game this year except for one.

What does this mean? I have no idea. I mean what do you make of a superstar playing first base on a badly injured elbow? What's the threshold for that thing staying together? 142 games? 156? Honestly, I'm just guessing. But if Pujols doesn't get regular days off and Pujols is hurt down the stretch with the Cardinals still in a pennant race, La Russa is probably going to be sorry.

As I mentioned yesterday, much of the Cardinals hot start has been due to a surprisingly decent showing from their patchwork rotation. The hopes in St. Louis had been that the staff they've scrapped together would tide them over until Chris Carpenter and Mark Mulder were healthy again, but at least half of that plan is looking awfully shaky right now.

The [Colorado Springs] Sky Sox had managed just eight runs over the previous three days against the [Memphis] Redbirds at AutoZone Park, but they tagged the 30-year-old Mulder for seven runs on nine hits over six shaky innings that left Mozeliak decidedly unimpressed.

"Obviously it wasn't an outing where he could just breeze through it. I feel that at times it lacked effort - or intensity may be the right word," Mozeliak said. "There's still some work to be done."

Having the GM question your effort or intensity is never a good thing. I'm sure the Cardinals want to believe that Mulder is eventually going to find his way back, but it looks less and less likely every day and it seems like Mozeliak knows that. He can make one more start for Memphis before the Cardinals have to decide if they want to activate him from the DL or send him back to extended spring training. Unless something miraculous happens, we can all be pretty sure he's not going to St. Louis any time soon.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Toronto Blue Jays (16-17) vs. Tampa Bay Rays (16-15) - 7:07PM Est.

It's been a few weeks since the Blue Jays cut themselves loose of slugger Frank Thomas because he just wasn't contributing anything on offense for them. Since that move, the Blue Jays still haven't scored very many runs, pushing only 37 runners across the plate in the 14 post-Thomas era games. Generally when you're only scoring 2.6 runs a game, you aren't going to win much, and the Blue Jays haven't going 6-8 in those games.

Over the last few days, though, Toronto has figured out how to win without scoring runs, and that's just not letting your opponent score any either.