A Step Toward Recovery

The Cardinals took a good first step yesterday, riding Todd Wellemeyer to a solid win over the Pirates.  It's too early to say that the slump is over, but it's nice to break it up a little bit.

There's no doubt that Wellemeyer was the Hero of last night's game.  The Cardinal offense came through some (though they could have scored much more) but it would have possibly been moot if Wellemeyer hadn't pitched as well as he did.  I think we'd take one run and two hits in seven innings every time out!  There's a good blog post on Wellemeyer by Bernie on the PD site today.  He's definitely been much more than we expected when the Cards picked him up last year.

That catch by Ankiel last night, robbing the home run, was "Edmonds-esque", as Rick himself said after the game.  I remember Jim taking one away from a Cincinnati batter (maybe even Jason LaRue?) almost exactly like that at Great American Ballpark.  Perhaps it was fitting being that Edmonds had been in the news so much yesterday.

You also had to like Pujols's solid game (41 on the On Base Streak counter), Cesar Izturis having an all-around offensively charged night and Jason Isringhausen coming out of the pen for a one-two-three outing.  Don't tell me "yeah, but it wasn't a save situation".  Izzy seems to struggle more in those slots than he does in actual close saves at times.  A good number of his blown saves weren't one run games when he came in.

With 15 hits and only one run allowed, it's hard to come up with a Goat for that game.  It's tough, but I think I'll give it to Brendan Ryan if for the most subjective of reasons.  I saw some of the game, not all of it, and was hoping the Cardinals would score some runs when they had runners at first and second, nobody out.  Wellemeyer bunts the runners over.  Now all Ryan really needs to do is put the ball in play and a good chance a run will score.  However, he strikes out there, which was the last thing the Cards wanted to see.  Yeah, it's small, but there wasn't a lot of Goatiness to go around last night.

It's also nice to know that no one actually reads this blog, since I did yesterday's preview and had Pineiro starting instead of Wellemeyer.  Let me know when I mess up this bad, people!  (Speaking of, I need to resolve never to try to guess a lineup again.  That was terrible!)  It's especially bad since I got it right when I did the CCH preview of the series.

What I said about Pineiro yesterday still holds.  The Pirates have done OK against him.  It could be a tough game, but it's really one the Cards need to win.

Pittsburgh counters with Ian Snell.  The Cardinals have faced Snell already this year and got a nice 4-0 lead on him in the first inning.  Problem was, that's all they got and the Pirates came back to win 7-4.  Snell's history against the Cardinal batters is a little ragged.  He's never figured out Pujols (which seems to help AP's quest for 42) and Molina's done pretty well against him.  Chris Duncan, not so much, though he does have a home run against him.

Early start today with the businessman's special, so it should be a good afternoon for baseball!


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