Thursday, February 19, 2015

Pitchers (Catchers too)!!!

The baseball season officially started this morning for my Cardinals when camp officially opened up to pitchers and catchers.  Considering I have seen dozens of pictures this week of pitchers pitching, the Cardinals pitching coach Derek Lilliquist looking like Kenny Powers, and Jason Heyward shagging fly balls it seems like it would be more appropriate to call today the last day for pitchers and catchers to report.  Either way, I am happy for baseball.  



I have high expectations for the Cardinals this season and am hoping for big things out of a few players.  So, for today I am going to focus in on a pitcher that I am excited to see this year: Carlos Martinez.  Currently Martinez is slated to be the Cardinals fifth starter behind Wainwright, Lynn, Lackey, and Wacha.  If you have never seen Martinez pitch you are missing out on something....




"Tsunami" throws in the high 90s, has a nasty change-up, and is frequently compared to Hall of Famer Pedro Martinez.  Of course, looking like Pedro Martinez in terms of pitches and physical appearance is one thing, it's another to actually put up numbers like him.  Carlos Martinez only has eight career starts under this belt and his career ERA+ is under 100.  Plenty of strikeouts during those starts, but he rarely pitches deep into games and needs to be more consistent.  I am hopefully we will see good things out of Carlos.  

Besides being hopefully on the field, I am also going to put a little time and effort into looking out for some Carlos Martinez baseball cards this year.  I picked up a really cool one last week.  The snow and ice slowed down this posting a bit, but I am really excited to add this card to my collection.  





I am pretty sure that I had barely touched the Topps Supreme Die Cuts this past year, save for a Garin Cecchini autograph, so it's nice to finally add a Cardinals version into the collection.  This is the purple version, Prince would be proud, and is serial numbered to just 25 copies.  You can kind of see it in the picture, but I am impressed at the thickness of card stock that Topps used for these autographs.  

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