The recent West Coast road trip was a disaster. When the starters were good, the offense was bad. When there were leads, they were squandered. Michael Wacha appeared. None of this is particularly what you want to see as a Cardinals fan. One thing that threatened to be a big story, though, before kind of fizzling, is Matt Carpenter’s return.
You see, Carpenter had been capital-b Bad in his minor league rehab. Two hits in 33 plate appearances bad. .273 OBP, .115 slugging percentage bad. It wasn’t as though he’d been good in the majors before getting hurt, either.