Home Run Derby

Wow.  A lot has changed since late last Thursday night when Rick Ankiel went 4 for 4 with two Home Runs and had seven RBI against the Pittsburgh Pirates. 

Everything was going great for the Cardinals, who were 17-9 in their last 26 games (since Ankiel’s 2007 debut) and were now only one game out of first place in the NL Central.  Thanks in no small part to Rick Ankiel. 

Ankiel was the feel-good story of the MLB season for a Cardinals team that desperately needed one after the drunk driving arrest of their manager and the death (from drunk driving) of one of their pitchers.  Not to mention the fact that the team had played poorly throughout the first half of the season.

But then on Friday, the news broke that Ankiel had recieved a one-year supply of Human Growth Hormone from that Florida pharmacy that’s at the center of an an illegal prescription drug distribution. 

Comparisons to “The Natural” were immediately put on hold.

In the four games since the revelation that he received the HGH, Ankiel has gone 1 for 14 with no walks.  And yesterday against the Cards’ division rival Chicago Cubs, batted 0 for 4 with four strikeouts.

That’s Right.  The dreaded Golden Sombrero.

Here’s video which includes three of Ankiel’s four strikeouts yesterday.  It might not work in FireFox, so try Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Ankiel looks lost at the plate. 

A few years back, Ankiel was an up and coming pitcher who suddenly couldn’t throw over the plate any longer.  It had gotten in his head that he couldn’t do it anymore.

Is it about to happen again to Ankiel? 

AP Photo/M. Spencer Green

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 at 9:44 am and is filed under Cardinals, Cubs, Golden Sombreros, Stats, Steroids. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.