There are those moments that just immediately come to mind when you think of the St. Louis Cardinals.  Perhaps it’s Ozzie’s home run or his signature backflip.  Bob Gibson glaring from the mound and striking out a World Series record.  David Freese’s home run in this past postseason.

What are the top moments, though?  That’s what the UCB tackles in January.  Click below on those that have taken the challenge.  More will be added through the weekend, most likely, so remember to come back often!

Aaron Miles’ Fastball
Balls & Strikes
Bird Brained
Born Bleeding
C70 At The Bat
Cardinal Diamond Diaries
CardinalsGM
I70 Baseball
On The Outside Corner
Pitchers Hit Eighth
Redbird Rants
Redbird Rants 2
RetroSimba
Saint Louis Sports
STL: Fear The Red

Every December, the UCB ends the year by reviewing just what was important over the last few months.  This year, there are plenty of things to choose from.  Read through all the links and revisit one historic year.

C70 At The Bat
Cardinal Diamond Diaries
Cards ‘N Stuff
Craving Cardinals
I70 Baseball
The McBrayer-Baseball Blog
On The Outside Corner
Redbird Dugout
Redbird Rants 1
Redbird Rants 2
RetroSimba
STL: Fear The Red
Women Who Love Cardinals Baseball

While the October/November/December roundtable is still going on, another project also gets a little play.  Every November, the UCB votes on certain awards, both on the field and in the blogging arena.  This is the fifth straight year that the awards have been handed out, and this year there is a twist.

We’ve added a fan voting portion to the awards, so you the reader or Twitter follower can also get a say in the action.  The fan blogs will be compiled into one vote to go into the mix with all the other blog ballots.  You can vote for your selections on this form here.

If you want to read how the UCB members are voting, follow the links below.  As always, continue to check back as more ballots are added.

Aaron Miles’ Fastball
Birds On The Bat 82
C70 At The Bat
Cardinal Diamond Diaries
Cards ‘N Stuff
Cards Tied For First
Craving Cardinals
Fungoes
I70 Baseball
The McBrayer-Baseball Blog
On The Outside Corner
Pitchers Hit Eighth (Dennis)
Pitchers Hit Eighth (Josh)
Pitchers Hit Eighth (Nick)
Redbird Rants
Redbirds Fun
RetroSimba
STL: Fear The Red

While the Cardinals continued their push to the World Series title (and you can read all our thoughts on that here), they also pushed our traditional roundtable back down the calendar a week at a time.  Now that the season is triumphantly over, it’s time to get down to it.

How the roundtable works is the blogger of the day poses a question to the rest of the group via email.  We spend the day batting it around, and the next day the blogger posts the transcript of our talk on their blog while the next person in line throws out another question.

You know that you are going to want to read them all.  As transcripts are posted, the links below will change to a direct jump to the answers and a * will be placed next to the blog name.  The days on the schedule are the days when they should be posted on the listed blog.  Lots of good baseball talk coming to heat up the winter!

Tuesday, November 1–I70 Baseball*
Wednesday, November 2–RetroSimba*
Thursday, November 3–Aaron Miles’ Fastball*
Friday, November 4–Welcome To Baseball Heaven*

Monday, November 7–On The Outside Corner*
Tuesday, November 8–Pitchers Hit Eighth*
Wednesday, November 9–MLB Voice (rescheduled)
Thursday, November 10–El Maquino*
Friday, November 11–Gas House Graphs

Monday, November 14–Cards Tied For First*
Tuesday, November 15–Cards Diaspora*
Wednesday, November 16–Cardinal Diamond Diaries*
Thursday, November 17–Cards ‘N Stuff*

Tuesday, November 22–Birds On The Bat 82*
Wednesday, November 23–Fungoes*

Tuesday, November 29–View From The Cheap Seats
Wednesday, November 30–Rob Says Really?
Thursday, December 1–Redbird Rants
Friday, December 2–STL Cardinal Baseball*

Monday, December 5–The McBrayer-Baseball Blog
Tuesday, December 6–CardinalsGM
Wednesday, December 7–Intangiball
Thursday, December 8–MLB Voice
Friday, December 9–Cardinal Diamond Diaries*

Monday, December 12–The Redbird Menace*
Tuesday, December 13–Redbird Dugout*
Wednesday, December 14–STL: Fear The Red*
Thursday, December 15–Bird Brained
Friday, December 16–Redbirds Fun*

Monday, December 19–Cardinal Diamond Diaries*
Tuesday, December 20–C70 At The Bat*

The St. Louis Cardinals, left for dead many times during the regular season and the postseason, have won their eleventh World Championship.  See how the members of the UCB are celebrating this amazing accomplishment!

Aaron Miles Fastball (One and Two)
Birds On The Bat 82
Bleed Cardinal Red With Me
C70 At The Bat
Cardinal Diamond Diaries
The Cardinal Virtue
Cards ‘N Stuff
El Maquino
I70 Baseball (One and Two)
The McBrayer-Baseball Blog
On The Outside Corner
Pitchers Hit Eighth
Redbird Dugout
The Redbird Menace
Redbird Rants
Redbirds Fun
RetroSimba
Stan Musial’s Stance
STL Cardinal Baseball
STL: Fear The Red

A number of years ago, Derrick Goold of the Post-Dispatch asked us to help him with a project he was doing, lining out the top 7 prospects of the Cardinals organization.  We liked the idea so much that we’ve put it into our regular rotation, doing this every September.

Check out all the various bloggers and their arguments, then come back later for the combined UCB list.

85% Sports
Aaron Miles’ Fastball
Birds On The Bat 82
C70 At The Bat
Cardinal Diamond Diaries
I70 Baseball
The McBrayer-Baseball Blog
On The Outside Corner
Pitchers Hit Eighth (Josh)
Pitchers Hit Eighth (Nick)
Redbird Dugout (Jon)
Redbird Dugout (Jerry)
RetroSimba

Below are the combined results, with a first place vote being worth seven points and working down the list until a seventh place vote is worth one point.

August is the last “freestyle” month of the year for the United Cardinal Bloggers.  September through December, there are regular projects that are done every year, but the August project tends to vary.  This year, we thought it’d be a good idea to get together and find out a little more about each other.  Bloggers were paired off and they exchanged Q&A.

To find out about this diverse group, follow the links below.  Due to the Cardinals scheduling Social Media Night the day before this was due, some postings have been delayed, so check back and continue to read!

Nick, Pitchers Hit Eighth and Rob, Rob Says Really?
Pip, Fungoes and Angela, Cardinal Diamond Diaries
Aaron, El Maquino and Jon, Redbird Dugout
John, STL: Fear The Red and Tara, Aaron Miles’ Fastball
Daniel, C70 At The Bat and Marilyn, Redbird Rants
Dathan, Good Morning Good Afternoon Goodnight and Bob, On The Outside Corner
Cole, Redbird Report and Mike, Stan Musial’s Stance
Bill, I70 Baseball and Dustin, Welcome To Baseball Heaven
Christine, Aaron Miles’ Fastball and Chris, Bird Brained

Good afternoon and welcome to the fourth annual Progressive Game Blog, hosted by the United Cardinal Bloggers.  We have an excellent lineup of blogs for you today to get you through today’s matchup between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Progressive Game Blog is (as far as we know) a UCB exclusive, in which one game can be seen through many different sets of eyes.  Each blog will take an inning (or half-inning, in two cases) and fill you in on what happened in their own unique way.

Let’s set the lineup for today’s action before setting the scene for the game.  As posts are made, these links will be edited to take you to the specific post rather than the blog in general, so continue to check back throughout the day.

First inning*:  I70 Baseball
Second inning*:  Aaron Miles’ Fastball
Third inning*:  The Redbird Menace
Fourth inning*: Fungoes
Fifth inning*:  STL: Fear The Red
Sixth inning*:  El Maquino
Seventh inning*: Cardinal Diamond Diaries
Top of the eighth inning*:  Cards ‘N Stuff
Bottom of the eighth inning*: Good Morning, Good Afternoon, Goodnight
Ninth inning*: Pitchers Hit Eighth
Extra Innings/Postgame*: C70 At The Bat

(*–Inning posted)

Milwaukee comes into this game riding a seven game losing streak and is tied with Houston for last in the NL Central, five and a half games behind division-leading St. Louis.  The Brewers narrowly avoided history last night, breaking up Jaime Garcia’s perfect game with one out in the seventh inning.  The Brewers managed only one other hit and lost 6-0.

Offense was supposed to be Milwaukee’s calling card this year.  The rotation had been upgraded, sure, but a team with Ryan Braun, Prince Fielder, Corey Hart, Rickie Weeks and Casey McGehee should be able to back whatever pitching they had with some strong outings.  Milwaukee is fifth in home runs in the National League with 32 (two behind St. Louis), but their team OPS is .707, ranking eighth in the league.  The offense has also gone south during this losing streak, as they are only hitting .157 over that span.

Taking the hill today for the visitors will be their ace from last year, Yovani Gallardo.  Many thought that he lost that status when the Brewers traded for Zack Greinke and Shaun Marcum, but that he would be a very dangerous number three starter.  However, this season has been a disaster so far for him.

Gallardo comes into this game with a 6.10 ERA in seven games, a mark all the more notable since he has one complete game shutout on his record as well.  In his last two starts, he’s allowed 11 earned runs in just 10 innings and his ERA in the last four is 9.28.  Whatever the problem with his stuff is, it has been an extended one.  According to the Brewer blog Bernie’s Crew, it appears that Gallardo is out of rhythm when he pitches and having trouble getting it back.

The Cardinals might not be the team he does it against, though.  Here is what he’s done against the current Birds on the Bat:

As you can see, a number of the Cardinals have had a lot of success against Gallardo in the past, a surprise given his ace-like status the past couple of years.  Also, one of the people that has struggled with him, Matt Holliday, is one of the hottest hitters in baseball right now, so it will be interesting to see which wins out during today’s contest.

The Cardinals, on the other hand, have shaken off the weak 2-6 start to the season to take the top slot in the division.  While the team is not without its question marks, most notably in the bullpen, they are 6-0-1 in their last seven series and looking to take yet another one this afternoon.

As noted above, Jaime Garcia flirted with perfection last night, settling for his second shutout of the season.  (Interestingly, Garcia now has more shutouts–three–than Adam Wainwright–two.)  The Cardinals have a +46 run differential, which is the highest in the National League, and a good portion of that is due to the remarkable pitching that St. Louis has received, most notably from the back end of their rotation.  The pitcher that most exemplifies that surprising success takes the mound today for the Redbirds.

It’s fitting that Kyle Lohse is on the mound for today’s Progressive Game Blog.  The first game blog took place on May 3, 2008.  Lohse was on the mound that day and had one of his worst outings of the season, allowing eight runs in six innings in a game against the Chicago Cubs.  Lohse only had a couple of other games that season approach that level of carnage and finished the year 15-6 with a 3.78 ERA, good enough for the Cardinals to sign him to a four-year contract on the last day of the season.

The results were completely different on May 23, 2009.  Lohse again took the mound, this time against the Kansas City Royals, and spun scoreless ball through eight innings as the UCB recorded it.  It seemed just a regular game, getting Lohse back on the track he was on with a superb April before slipping a bit at the beginning of May.

However, a fastball in the eighth inning from Ron Mahay struck Lohse on the forearm.  Seemingly innocuous, that pitch turned out to have major impacts not only on the rest of 2009 but most of 2010 as well.  Lohse missed most of the next six weeks and when he returned to pitching, he wasn’t at all the same player Cardinal Nation had seen wearing the St. Louis uniform.

Lohse continued to try to pitch through the injuries, but after his May 22, 2010 start, he landed on the disabled list.  Had he not, he would have pitched on May 29, 2010, the third of the game blogs.  Instead, Adam Ottavino made his major league debut against the Chicago Cubs.  Ottavino struggled with his command and didn’t make it through the sixth inning.

That brings us to today.  Lohse had the surgery on the forearm last season and has been a different pitcher in 2011, one that resembles the Lohse that was signed to that long-term deal.  He finished April with a 1.64 ERA before hitting a speed bump last time out against the Florida Marlins, allowing five runs, including a Gaby Sanchez grand slam, in six innings.

Lohse has had his struggles with this Brewers lineup as well in the past.

This stats should be looked at with the caveat that a number of them have been piled up in the last couple of years, when Lohse was not at 100%.  That said, there are some high averages there, though it does look like Lohse has been pretty good about keeping them in the park.

Today’s game starts at 3:05 PM Central with Dan and Al on the Fox Sports Midwest telecast.  It should be an exciting game and you’ll have some great guides through the way today.  Bill Ivie and the crew at I70 Baseball will get you started here soon.  Enjoy the afternoon, everyone!

April 2-3, 2011 became designated at UCB Weekend when the Cardinals invited members of the blogger community up for a game and we decided to enjoy a dinner together the night before.  Want to read about it and feel like you were there (if you weren’t)?  Check out the links below, and numerous sites had up the live blog.

Aaron Miles’ Fastball 1
Aaron Miles’ Fastball 2
C70 At The Bat 1
C70 At The Bat 2
Cardinal Diamond Diaries 1
Cardinal Diamond Diaries 2
CardinalsGM
Cards ‘N Stuff
Cards Diaspora
Cards Droppings
The McBrayer-Baseball Blog
Pitchers Hit Eighth 1
Pitchers Hit Eighth 2
Pitchers Hit Eighth 3
The Redbirds Report
STL: Fear The Red

Who will win the various awards and which team will be left standing at the end of October?  Our intrepid bloggers let you know.

C70 At The Bat
Cards Droppings
Cards ‘N StuffObviously, You’re Not A Golfer
Pitchers Hit Eighth
RetroSimba
Redbirds Fun
STL: Fear The Red