d points out, nobody would take seriously a proposition that Ge

ST. LOUIS -- The fact that former Cardinals backup catcher Eric Fryer delivered a two-run double to help hand St. Louis another home loss Tuesday night was irrelevant to manager Mike Matheny.Every loss stings, Matheny said. It doesnt matter who does it to us. They all hurt.The Pittsburgh Pirates 5-2 win dropped the Cardinals to 18-25 in Busch Stadium and was St. Louis ninth consecutive defeat at home to a team with a winning record, dating back to June 14.If St. Louis plans to hold onto second place in the National League Central, let alone make up any ground in the division or wild-card race, a win in the third game of its four-game series with the Pirates might be a good idea.Nine games behind the Chicago Cubs in the division, the Cardinals (43-40) are just a half-game ahead of hard-charging Pittsburgh (43-41) for second. The Pirates bring a six-game winning streak into Wednesday nights matchup, tying a season high set from April 24-30.Pittsburghs bullpen has keyed the stretch of excellence. Since June 24, the relievers have allowed just one run over 40 1/3 innings, and they tossed five scoreless innings Tuesday night after inheriting a 2-2 tie.They are on a roll, Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said his relievers. Theyre in good form, and were going to keep giving them the ball.Given the form of left-handed starter Jeff Locke, the Pirates bullpen might see action sooner rather than later. Although Locke (8-5, 5.13 ERA) is coming off a 7-3 win Friday night in Oakland, he has been pummeled on the road more often than not, going 3-4 with a 7.16 ERA in nine starts away from PNC Park.Locke has also struggled in his career against St. Louis, going 2-4 with a 4.04 ERA in nine starts and averaging only 5.4 innings per outing. He faced the Cardinals on May 7, allowing three runs over six innings in a no-decision.Locke will be opposed by left-hander Jaime Garcia, who cruised through a 7-1 win Friday night over the Milwaukee Brewers, giving up four hits and a run in eight innings and just 98 pitches.Garcia (6-6, 3.84 ERA) is 2-1 in six career games against Pittsburgh with an 0.57 ERA. This will be his first start against the Pirates since he bagged a 4-1 win last September with seven shutout innings, fanning nine.The Cardinals felt they were turning a corner of sorts at home with a weekend sweep of Milwaukee, but they have run into old familiar problems against the Pirates. They have managed only four runs in the series first two games, unable to consistently capitalize on scoring chances.St. Louis is averaging 4.4 runs per game at home, more than a run and a half less than it scores on the road, where the team is 25-15. While Matheny and some players might be tired of answering questions about that trend, the best way to make those queries stop is to start winning games.We cant wait for tomorrow to arrive and kind of erase this one, Cardinals backup catcher Brayan Pena said. We can go back to what we do, and thats playing the game we love. Adidas Superstar ελλαδα . Team physician Dr. Steve Traina performed the surgery Friday. Robinson was injured in a spill underneath the Nuggets basket during the first quarter of Wednesday nights loss to the Charlotte Bobcats. Adidas NMD γυναικεια φθηνα . PAUL, Minn. http://www.nmdgreece.com/ . MLS Commissioner Don Garber and Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez also will attend the session, which was announced Monday. The league has discussed placing its next two expansion teams in Miami and Atlanta. παπουτσια Adidas Superstar ανδρικα . -- Teemu Selanne scored the first goal of his 22nd NHL season, and the Anaheim Ducks extended the best start in franchise history with their fifth straight victory, 3-2 over the Calgary Flames on Wednesday night. Adidas NMD R2 φθηνα . Brandon Morrow allowed five runs on six hits over three innings. He struck out two, walked one and hit a batter. Edwin Encarnacion had a two-out, bases loaded two-RBI double in the third inning. ?Were here again. Every year or every time we get into a description of all-time greatness in the infield, we end up with two seemingly unimpeachable assertions. Lou Gehrig was and remains the greatest first baseman ever. And Honus Wagner was and remains the greatest shortstop ever.That isnt to say these havent been evaluated at length. Even if you can look past the legend of the Iron Horse, the games played streak, the martyrdom of his tragic death and the luckiest man alive speech, or the stable counterpoint he provided to the equally legendary Babe Ruth during the first half of his career, its just flat-out hard to top Gehrigs statistical legacy: .340/.447/.632, 493 homers, two MVPs and six titles, essentially crammed into just 14 years as a full-time player.Similarly, Wagner is especially problematic as targets go. If not for Bill James writing about Wagner over the years, he might be more famous for the value of his baseball card than the value of his performance. (That might still be true.) So when you have one of the co-founders of sabermetrics basically say 30 years ago, Conversation over, well, thats good enough for most people. Its tough to be you, Cal Ripken, Ozzie Smith or Derek Jeter. And while Alex Rodriguez might have the numbers, narrowing the gap with 118.3 WAR to Wagners 131.0, these days the guy probably gets discounted for PEDs or time spent at the hot corner.By WAR, it looked as if Albert Pujols would catch Gehrig because of the cruising altitude he established as a Cardinal. But now Pujols is at 99.8 WAR and slowing down as an Angel, and the Iron Horse is still way out in front with 112.4. Beating Gehrig by counting stats doesnt help much: Pujols already has more hits and homers and will ultimately pass him in RBIs in another couple of seasons.For exercises like this, I doubt it matters. The numbers that support Wagner and Gehrig deserve deeper consideration if were really going to try to be fair to the present.With Wagner, youre talking about a very different game in the dead ball era, a period before you can even claim all of the best white talent in North America belonged to and played MLB-brand baseball. That game is recognizable, but different, more defense-dependent at a time when the talent pool drawn from a significantly smaller population of Americans and white immigrants.With Gehrig, you need to get into the unchanging problem of massive competitive imbalance, a product of small leagues with multiple non-competitive franchises. Lets take 1934, one of Gehrigs best seasons, as an example.Same as ever, there are just seven opposing teams. Four of them wind up with losing records, and another finishes at .500, so the Yankees have only two serious opponents. (They lose out tto the Tigers.dddddddddddd) So who was Gehrig hitting against? Not the best pitching staff in the league, because that belonged to the Yankees. Four of the top 12 ERA qualifiers were his teammates, and he doesnt have to face them. Facing the St. Louis Browns, Chicago White Sox, Philadelphia As and Washington Senators -- the losing half of the league -- Gehrig hits an incredible .376/.500/.831 in 88 of 154 games. Against the two winning teams, the ones with pitching, he slugs .462.Thats the 30s for you in a nutshell: a statistical slaughter with half the league populated by patsies and without African American and Latino players who were shut out because of their race. Now you tell me: Which pitchers are going away if the game were integrated to include black and Latin talent? Not Lou Gehrigs teammates, but a whole lot of the people Gehrig feasted on suddenly go away.The Gehrig and Wagner arguments boil down to this: Via WAR or OPS+ or your own understanding of all of the numbers we have, you have faith in our measuring their relative extraordinary superiority over their peers in smaller leagues with deliberate personnel limitations and an uneven distribution of talent. You can have that faith, and it relies on a lot of data for support -- at the same time that you turn a blind eye to whats going on in the game that creates that data. Of course, you could make the same kind of case for Randy Bass in Japan if you wanted to. Or a professional softball player moonlighting in your beer league. But why those dont work is because we dont take it on faith that those leagues are as competitive as MLB. As David Schoenfield points out, nobody would take seriously a proposition that George Mikan is still the NBAs greatest center.The question there is why we dont do that with baseball as well. But instead, while keeping Gehrig and Wagner on the perches, we play this game of make-believe with the math, that somehow this one game has historic yardsticks and standards that we should venerate to try to make an apples-to-apples comparisons of the greats from the past to the greats we see now. Were really working with apples and passion fruit.When you consider the challenges, logistical and competitive, the year-round demand on the players, the information going into the staying at the highest level, we might just want to get out of trying to force the comparisons. We know about Albert Pujols or Derek Jeter what we could never know about Gehrig or Wagner: what they could do against the best competition on the planet in the most competitive era in the games history. Lets credit them for that. ' ' '