Record-Breaking (C70 At The Bat)

Record-Breaking

The Cardinals posted their highest-ever April win total by beating up on the Reds yesterday. After Harang took a 2-0 lead, I was afraid that the game was starting to get out of hand, especially the way Harang can pitch. But the Cardinals immediately stole a run back (almost literally, with Duncan scoring on a wild pitch) and were off and running.

Heroically, Rick Ankiel was 3-3, driving in two of the Cardinals' five runs. Right behind him was Aaron Miles, with his 2-4, 2 runs, 2 RBI game. And it's possible that Jason LaRue should get a little mention as well, depending on what he told his teammates about Harang.

On the flip side, Troy Glaus was 0-4 with a double play, which gets him another Goat award. Days like that are going to happen, though, and at least it happened in a win.

If there's anything LaRussa can do, it's juggle lineups. So far, the results are looking good.

Along with the game yesterday, there were a lot of eyes on the Memphis game, with Mark Mulder pitching. Those eyes are now permanently scarred after witnessing a horrific outing. 3.2 innings, 7 earned runs? At least we won't have to worry about the braintrust rushing him up to the bigs.

Mulder can have two more rehab starts and I expect, even if the first one is very good, they'll leave him down there for both. There's not a pressing need for a starter right now anyway, plus you still can't quite tell what you have with him.

While the strong start puts the Cards in good company with prior Redbird teams, don't start printing the playoff tickets yet. Larry at VEB did some great work showing the pitching splits, home and away, leading to the projection that May, with an even split of 14 home games and 14 road games, and June (18 away, 9 home) could be tough ones for the Cardinals.

That's for another day, however. Today, the Cards are virtually tied for first place and are off getting ready for the series with the Cubs. A day to reflect on April and appreciate what they've done and a day to root like crazy for the Brewers this afternoon. Looks like a good matchup in Wrigley, with Zambrano and Gallardo going at each other.

Won't be around tomorrow, as real life has a heck of a day in store for me. But I'll be back Saturday with the pre-game and post-game postings for the UCB game blogging project. I'm quite excited to see how this is going to turn out!

And for those of you coming over from VEB or other places talking about the project, here's the link to the description. Note that CardinalsGM is taking over for my inning, while I'm doing the pre and post game.

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