Sunday morning, Tyler Greene was hitting .200/.304/.300 and looked, to some eyes, to be a few bad games from the St. Louis Cardinals cutting their losses and waiving their 2005 first-rounder. Monday morning, he's hitting .256/.360/.512, and—well, people aren't nearly so keen to dump him when Lance Berkman needs a roster spot.
↵The main lesson of this, of course, is that it's a bad idea to make a decision about a player after 18 poorly spaced appearances, and probably also after 19 poorly spaced appearances. Maybe even 20 poorly spaced appearances—who knows? But this could also have some bearing on the Cardinals' still-open second base position.
↵↵
- ↵
- Most clearly: The Cardinals need Tyler Greene to hit left-handers, because Skip Schumaker (career .210/.280/.243) and Daniel Descalso (.208/.296/.278) absolutely shouldn't be doing it. Greene, before he punished J.A. Happ Sunday, was hitting .193/.298/.314 against southpaws, which is terrible and still better than either left-handed option. The short side of this platoon is Greene's to lose, and he'd have to play even more poorly than he did in April to do it. ↵
- Less clearly: Has Skip Schumaker won the second base job, or is Mike Matheny just playing the hot hand? In Matheny's defense, all this time we've been complaining about Schumaker's playing time at the keystone Greene and Descalso have been bad. If one of them strings together a few big games in a row, will he get the same treatment as Schumaker? ↵
It'll be a little easier to know now that somebody's had a big game, is the good news.
↵