From the Jaws of Victory (C70 At The Bat)

From the Jaws of Victory

Just when you start thinking that Jason Isringhausen is back on the horse, it bucks him again.

Granted, some of last night can't be blamed on Izzy. Kyle McClellan had a rough night in the nine pitches that he threw. Albert Pujols possibly, maybe even probably should have caught the foul ball that would have had them out of the inning. Randy Flores put the tying run on base.

But all that said, basically what the Cards asked from their closer was one out. Get out of the eighth with the lead and things are much better. You can start the ninth fresh and hopefully put up a nice Cardinal win.

He couldn't do that. A weak single--one of the few balls this year that you say, "Rolen would have had that"--then a triple that scored the go-ahead run. Tack on a walk after that and the Cards were lucky to go into the ninth just down one.

At least the Cardinals had a chance in the ninth. Skip Schumaker got on and Miles almost worked a walk before flying out. Don't know if it'd mattered, but it'd been nice to have two on and no outs. Pujols stung the ball--that was two balls he smashed right at the left side of the infield on the night--but nothing doing.

Even with his game-ending strikeout, though, I think the Hero tag goes to Ryan Ludwick. I loved what Adam Wainwright did, don't get me wrong. It was a close one, but Ludwick pretty much was the offense last night, with his home run and two RBI.

So instead of Wainwright getting a deserved win, instead of the Cards pushing their winning streak to four and their NL Central lead to 3.5, they have to regroup and try to win the series today.

Today's an afternoon affair, with a 2:05 start here in the middle of the country. Kyle Lohse looks to put Saturday's atrocious outing behind him against Jorge de la Rosa, who can tell you all about a disastrous outing.

Lohse pitched well against the Rockies in the make-up season opener, throwing five scoreless innings and striking out three. Again, Podsednik and Helton will be the key batters for him to watch.

de la Rosa has faced a few of the Cardinals before. He's been around as a reliever, facing most of the Cards when he was in either Milwaukee or Kansas City. Still, there's not much of a book on him, so it'll be interesting to see what the Cards do with him.

It'll be a test to see if the Cards can bounce back. So far this season, they've been able to do that. Can they do it on the road after such a tough loss? And if the game is close today, who gets the call for the save?

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