Rachel Crader is the editor of semoball.com. She graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism in May of 2009 before spending the summer covering the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

Highlights from Rachel's days in college include having a class down the hall from Chase Daniel and having NCAA wrestling champion Ben Askren hold the door open for her at Brady Commons, Mizzou's student center. She spent time covering Mizzou basketball, softball and baseball while working for the Columbia Missourian and is excited to return home to Southeast Missouri to cover local sports for semoball.com.

Rachel has covered three Southeast Missourian Christmas Tournaments for the Southeast Missourian and semoball.com, and she'll see you courtside again this year.

Duncan sent down to Memphis

Posted Wednesday, July 22, 2009, at 1:20 PM

The St. Louis Cardinals have sent outfielder Chris Duncan down to Memphis. Duncan has struggled at the plate for most of the year and was hitting .227 with five home runs and 32 RBI this season before being sent to the team Triple A affiliate to try to work out his problems.

Tony LaRussa, as most fans would probably expect, has aggressively defended Duncan as of late and claimed that his performance was being unfairly targeted. Still, it is hard to argue with the numbers that Duncan has produced, especially if that argument is for him. He has one hit in his last 31 at-bats.

The Cardinals haven't officially announced who will take Duncan's spot on the roster, but stlcardinals.com speculated that recalling Troy Glaus is a possibility while the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that a Cardinal source told Joe Strauss that Brian Barden would be called up.

Barden hit .233 in his stint with the Cardinals earlier this year.

What do you think of this move? Who do you want to see called up?

For what it's worth, I think the move was inevitable and necessary. I'm not the type to be excited to see Duncan's failures come to this, but, at the same time, it didn't really seem like he was ever going to turn things around with the big club. Even if Barden is the one they call up, he'll basically be holding Glaus's roster spot for him, I think, so Cardinal fans can just hope he can produce in the meantime.

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Duncan traded to Red Sox for Julio Lugo. Red Sox eat Lugo's salary. Good move, as long as Ryan is the starter at SS and the better of Lugo/Greene backs him up or perhaps plays third (if DeRosa is in the OF). But B. Ryan is a better SS than Lugo.

-- Posted by redhawk81 on Wed, Jul 22, 2009, at 5:40 PM

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