Lay Off Kyle Lohse Already...

Everyone is jumping on Kyle's case today. He had a rough game last night, repeatedly giving up the Cardinals' lead. Last year he was injured; this year he has been less than stellar. He's started 3 games so far in 2010, has given up 13 runs (all earned), and now has a 7.31 ERA. In those three games, Lohse has walked 7 and struck out 5 – compare that to our Aces: Adam Wainwright who has walked 5 and struck out 22 and Chris Carpenter who has walked 5 and struck out 17, and it doesn't look good. I checked out Baseball-reference.com, and sorted pitchers in the NL by their ERAs. So far this season, Lohse ranks 48th out of the 54 pitchers in ERA. Ouch.

So granted, the stats are there to support the complainers. However I'd like it to be noted that even Carp recently had a tough game (one game, not three... yes, I know). Also Lohse was reportedly suffering from a severe head cold yesterday. Remember... Matt Holliday played terribly when he was sick too. So, I'm not ready to participate in the bashing of one of our starting pitchers. I want to see a little more from Mr. Lohse. It's still early, small sample size, and all that...

Hubby says I am 'such a female fan' because deep down I do believe that if I cheer really well for a player, they somehow might do better. And from there it could be true that a player whose fans don't support him, might then play worse. Of course, that's just me. There's no scientific proof whatsoever, but I know some of you agree with that hypothesis even if you don't admit it. We're baseball fans and we have our superstitions. So, I really don't like it when I hear Cardinals fans trash-talking our players. To me, it's ok to cringe when they make errors and have a bad game, but I'm going to cheer for them through bad times as well as good times. It just may make a difference.