MLB st louis Cardinals

Whoever was just hired as the hitting coach for the St. Louis Cardinals, raise your hand. All right, you in the suit. Tell us how you got the job. What? You don't want to talk about it? Hey that seems pretty weird!

Yes, 2010 will see the return of shadowy figure Mark McGwire to Major League Baseball. He should use his influence to get the Cards to sign Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds to coaching deals as well, and everyone in St. Louis can root for a ball club instructed by the Monstars.

Today's Dugout is after the jump.

This can't end well. In fact, unless the city of St. Louis is just into the bizarre -- you know, such as plans to replace that large arch downtown with a Starbucks or something, this will end sooner than later.

Mark McGwire as Cardinals hitting coach?

I'm still waiting for the punch line.

In order for this to work, McGwire has to discuss what he hasn't wanted to discuss forever, and you know what that is. Instead, he spit at a bunch of congressmen during a hearing on steroids during the spring of 2005 on Capitol Hill by telling them, "I'm not here to talk about the past."

Yeah, well. The guy has no choice now. He will be hounded by his "past" on every Cardinals road trip. I'm guessing that more than a few folks in St. Louis also will have questions about his "past."

Mark McGwire will end his baseball exile and accept a position with the St. Louis Cardinals as their hitting coach, a Cardinals source confirmed to FanHouse's Ed Price Sunday afternoon. He'll replace Hal McRae, who's held the position for five years. The story initially appeared on Brian McRae's Twitter account, though it's since been deleted.

The playoffs are almost over and the stage is set for the defending World Champion Philadelphia Phillies to face the dreadnought New York Yankees ... or the Los Angeles Angels Angels, pending a dead Christopher Lloyd-style miracle.

The bottom line is this: the World Series is like one block to our left, and we're going to have to start buckling down and making some declarative statements. Before we do that, though, today's Dugout features some pre-ALCS decision arguing and some sad realities.

During FanHouse's marathon live chat of the ALCS and NLCS yesterday, I couldn't help but notice Scott Boras directly behind home plate as the Angels took on the Yankees in Game 3. I was informed during the chat by our own Jeff Fletcher that Boras has season tickets behind home plate at both Angels and Dodger Stadium, and he likes to show up early so he's available to the media.

Well, Boras was available Monday, and he fired his opening salvo of the Matt Holliday Sweepstakes this winter. It looks like any team that wants to sign Holliday should start their offers somewhere in the range of the eight-year $180 million that Mark Teixeira got from the Yankees last winter.

Contrary to popular belief, Ralph Branca didn't throw away a pennant with his pitch that became Bobby Thomson's shot heard around the world. All of the Brooklyn Dodgers kept themselves out of the World Series back then. They choked away a huge lead in September to force that playoff against the New York Giants.

Remember Bill Buckner's gaffe?

Overrated.

That was in Game 6. The Boston Red Sox still had a chance to win the world championship in Game 7, but they didn't.

John Smoltz completed his 21st major league season Saturday night when the Cardinals were swept out of the NLDS by the Los Angeles Dodgers. As of now, the 42-year-old hurler does not plan on it being his last.

Smoltz told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he'll need some more time to fully evaluate whether or not he'll come back to pitch in 2010, but his initial thought is that he will.

With two series over, Major League Baseball has updated the schedule for the rest of the Division Series.

The Rockies and Phillies will play their Game 4 at 4 PM ET if the Yankees-Twins series is still going on. Should the Yankees finish off a sweep Sunday night, the NL Game would move to 6 PM ET.

Series-by-series times are after the jump (all times Eastern).

Playoff Pulse is our morning rundown of the night that was and the night that will be during the MLB postseason.

Looking Forward ...

With the World Series scheduled to go into November, we had a feeling extreme cold weather could play a factor in the postseason. Who knew it would be so soon? Wintry weather forced the postponement of Game 3 of the Rockies-Phillies NLDS to Sunday night.

It should be nicer than it was Saturday, with the game-time temperature projected to be in the low-40s, but that's still awfully frigid for baseball, and it will only get colder as the game goes on.

In Advanced Scouting, MLB FanHouse's professional talent evaluator breaks down the playoffs from a scouting perspective.

The St. Louis Cardinals may have beaten themselves in getting swept by the Dodgers, but Game 3 left us with a classic question. Was Vicente Padilla's strong pitching performance all him or the opposing lineup's doing? On this particular night, there was probably little the Cardinals could have done to stop him.

Padilla brought the raw stuff of an ace to the hill, touching 97 mph and sitting around 93-96 most of the night. Most importantly he was able to locate his fastball inside to righties with some running action.