Bouncing Back

Hope everyone enjoyed the live blog trial last night.  chet did a great job with the descriptions and general running of the whole thing.  He'll be doing that most every game, so be sure to check out his site when you can and we'll try it again soon, most likely.

Good game to do it with, as the Cardinals were able to make things very interesting and still be able to get the win.  There are a few players to choose from for the Hero tag, but I think I'll go with Braden Looper.  He pitched a very solid game and didn't allow the Marlins to pull away, keeping them close enough to let the offense finally break through.  Chris Perez also had a pretty good game.  He wasn't perfect, of course, but he got the job done, which is more than we can say for many of the other relievers this season.

In fact, another reliever gets our Goat award.  Kyle McClellan has, on the whole, had a very solid season in the pen.  But last night wasn't one of those nights.  McClellan almost gave back the entire Cardinal lead in less than an inning of work before being bailed out by Perez.  Thankfully, the Cardinals had scored an insurance run in the top of that inning, because they needed it!

Unfortunately, all that win did was really keep pace with the Brewers and, due to the doubleheader sweep, they lost a half game on the Cubs.  With 39 games to play, the Cards sit 7.5 out of the divisional lead and four out of the wild card.  It's going to take a run like we've not seen out of this team to get back into serious postseason contention.

In other news, Colby Rasmus is continuing his rehab, looking to return at the end of the month to Memphis.  I hope that, since he's not going to the Olympics, the plans have changed and he'll get a look in September.  I'm really interested to see how he'll do against some major league pitching.

Rasmus isn't the only one pushing through rehab.  Josh Kinney--remember him?--wants to pitch for the club in September, saying he thinks he'll be ready.  I don't see any problem with that, because as we all know, we could use the bullpen help.  Plus it'd be nice to know if Kinney is going to be a contender for next year's bullpen or if he still needs some work.

Let's look at today's game.  It's really important the Cards win this one.  Then again, it's pretty important they win most all of their remaining games.

Todd Wellemeyer gets the start against Scott Olsen.  The Marlins haven't seen much of Wellemeyer, which hopefully will play to his advantage.  Olsen doesn't have quite the same edge against the Cardinals, though he's not faced them an awful lot either.  Felipe Lopez will probably be back in the lineup, having 20 ABs against the Florida hurler.

On paper, this could be a close win for the Cardinals.  Let's see if real life plays out that way. 


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