Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak said yesterday that he has "a gut feeling" there's "probably less than a 50-50 chance" of Troy Glaus playing at all this year due to January shoulder surgery that was initially expected to keep him out for the first 4-6 weeks of the season.
Mozeliak explained that the team "would be getting more feedback" on Glaus' recovery "if he were getting better or improving to where he was getting closer to doing some baseball activities."
Instead, he hinted at beginning to search for a right-handed bat to replace Glaus in the lineup that ranks just eighth among NL teams in scoring despite the usual MVP-caliber performance from Albert Pujols.
Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post Dispatch speculates that the Cardinals could go after Garrett Atkins or Mark DeRosa to play third base, as both players are impending free agents on teams that figure to be sellers at the trading deadline.
So far Joe Thurston and Brian Barden have filled in for Glaus and the position has produced just three homers, 17 RBIs, and a measly .250/.331/.381 line that ranks 12th in the league. Meanwhile the guy St. Louis traded for Glaus, Scott Rolen, is hitting .299/.374/.442 for the Blue Jays.
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I never understood why Larussa couldn't figure out a way to get along with Scott Rolen. Larussa gets lots of credit for being a great manager, but really, one of the only things a manager has to do is manage the personalities of the players on his roster. If you let a relationship with a player sour to the extent that his relationship with Rolen did, that is bad management.
And Rolen's not the only good player with whom that's happened. It's inexcusable, I think.