Holliday focused on 'winning every game', not future
He is the midseason acquisition other clubs dream of, the middle-of-the-lineup bat that changes fortunes. Toss Matt Holliday a cookie these days, he crushes it. Throw him a slider away or a fastball down, he's on it.
Holliday is turning every day into a holiday in St. Louis -- Christmas morning comes to mind -- and he's turned the NL Central race into shambles.
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| Holliday: "I like it here. Obviously, the team is good and competitive.' (Getty Images) |
"Great guy," Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter says. "Plays hard. Loves to play the game."
"Makes your lineup deeper," St. Louis manager Tony La Russa says. "He never throws an at-bat away."
"If we woulda had a guy like that, just think how many World Series we woulda won," boasts Cardinals Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean.
Well, OK. Technically, Dean, whose Cardinals played in two World Series (and won one, in 1934), didn't really say that since he passed away in 1974.
But Albert Pujols did really say this: "He's been doing what he used to do for years in this league, wearing pitchers out. He's really given us a boost. We were a pretty good lineup. Now we're really good."
From Rogers Hornsby to Frankie Frisch, from Ol' Diz on up through Enos Slaughter, Stan Musial, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, Ozzie Smith and the rest, the Cardinals' history is thick with pennants and memories.
A free agent following this season, there is no way of telling how deep of a footprint Holliday will leave in St. Louis before he's through. But even if his stay is only three months, the way things are going now, his mark could be indelible.
"It's gone well," Holliday says in the most enormous understatement in baseball this year. "I was really starting to find my swing with the A's. It was good timing with the trade. Everything's worked out really well."
Yeah, unless you're one of the poor saps coming up on St. Louis' schedule.
So far (through Monday), Holliday has 27 RBI in 28 games with the Cardinals. He's hitting .398 with six homers. And as the Cards opened a nine-game homestand Tuesday night against Houston, Washington and Milwaukee, Holliday was batting .472 with four homers and 14 RBI in 13 games in Busch Stadium.
Along with Philadelphia's Cliff Lee, Holliday clearly is the best midseason acquisition going. Chalk one up for the Cardinals, and general manager John Mozeliak.
Aside from his own scorching numbers, with Holliday in the lineup, opposing pitchers no longer are giving Pujols the Barry Bonds treatment. You bet the Cardinals have noticed a difference. A significant difference.
"Sure," La Russa says. "They're more likely to pitch to Albert now. With Matt an established run-producer, it creates an edge."
Since Holliday's arrival, Pujols has taken 20 walks -- three intentional -- in 28 games. Before Holliday, Pujols was walked 74 times -- 34 intentionally -- in 98 games.
Especially striking is the intentional walks total: Before Holliday, Pujols was averaging one per 4.9 games. Since Holliday, he's been averaging one every 9.3 games.
"I'm getting the same pitches," Pujols says, speaking of the pitches that do come over the plate. "It's not fastballs over the middle, 'Here, hit it.'"
But with Holliday, unquestionably, Pujols is getting more looks at pitches he has a chance to crush. And the argument can be made that the Cardinals still aren't hitting on all cylinders: Pujols, since the All-Star break, is down a bit, hitting .279 with a .404 on-base percentage and a .527 slugging percentage (as opposed to .332/.456/.723 before the break).
You would never notice, however, thanks to Holliday. Though he started slowly with Oakland, causing flocks of folks to point out that yes, he most certainly was a Coors Field hitter, Holliday's self-assessment that he started to find his swing in Oakland is accurate. His current tear started just before St. Louis acquired him in exchange for minor league infielder Brett Wallace, outfielder Shane Peterson, right-hander Clayton Mortensen and a few dollars tossed in.
Since the All-Star break, Holliday is hitting .396 with nine homers and 38 RBI in 36 games. Through the end of last week and since the break, Holliday led all major leaguers with a .408 average, 24 extra-base hits, 95 total bases and 34 RBI. According to STATS LLC, since expansion in 1961, only five players have batted .400 or better after the break (in 200 or more plate appearances): Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki in 2004, San Francisco's Bonds in 2002, Colorado's Larry Walker in 1998, San Diego's Tony Gwynn in 1993 and Kansas City's George Brett in 1980.
"It probably looks like familiarity, being traded back to the National League," Holliday says. "It probably looks strange. But when you play long enough ... everybody thought David Ortiz was done this year. Then you look, and suddenly he's got 20 home runs and it's the same David Ortiz as ever.
"Hitting is a tough skill. You're going to go through times where it feels easy, and you're going to go through times when it feels like there are 15 fielders and you've got nowhere to hit it. You go through times where you think you're great and you go through times where you think you stink, and it's probably neither."
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| Pujols: 'He's (Holliday) really given us a boost ... Now we're really good.' (AP) |
Yes, Cardinals fans, he likes St. Louis well enough that he can see himself sticking around for a long, long time. On the other hand, given the numbers he's putting up now, he may as well have a license to print money for his free-agent run this winter (agent: Scott Boras).
"I like it here," he says. "Obviously, the team is good and competitive. The guys on the team seem like they're a really great bunch of guys. It's got a lot of the things I'm interested in."
His house in Denver is currently on the market. Right now, as he says, he's simply "hanging out." He hasn't yet decided where he will establish permanent residence. Maybe in the city where he signs his next long-term contract. "Possibly," he says, indicating he'll wait and see what happens with the game and in the market this winter.
He smiles when asked how hard his new teammates in St. Louis are lobbying for him to stay right where he is for a few years. Yes, he acknowledges, the lobbying already has begun "in passing."
But he also says that he is doing his best to put off thoughts on the future until the appropriate time.
"I think I owe it to the guys in here and to the staff to focus on winning every game," says Holliday, and mission accomplished, so far. "I want to keep focusing on that. All the other stuff, there will be plenty of time for."
Right now, on the eve of the stretch run, there's only enough time to ensure that focus is total, that at-bats are not wasted, that the Cardinals snuff out every bit of life that might remain in their NL Central competitors.
"You bring him in, and you bring Mark DeRosa in, and the things that Julio Lugo can do," Carpenter says. "You add all that to a lineup, it makes it that much stronger and that much deeper.
"It got very veteran-ish in a hurry, if that's a word."
Grammarians and English teachers might blanch, but the way these Cardinals are rolling ... veteran-ish? We'll give it to Carpenter.
"You know what I'm saying?" Carpenter says. "It really took on a new look."
An especially scary look, from the opposing dugout, with Pujols and Holliday together.
"When I play the game, I don't care who's batting in front of me or who's batting behind me," Pujols says. "You do things to help the ballclub.
"It's not about him and it's not about me. It's about the ballclub, and what we can do to help the ballclub reach the next level."
