Splitting the Difference

The Cardinal teeter-totter continued this weekend.  After losing a game they should have won on Friday, they came back and won a game that, on paper, they probably should have lost Saturday.

With Ben Sheets on the mound, you know that runs are likely to be scarce.  So that meant that Chris Duncan's two-run home run was huge, pushing the Cardinal edge to 3-0.  Could play a lot of ifs there--without that home run, maybe Pineiro is handled differently, or maybe the Brewers win.  It was a big moment, though, so he gets Hero status for Saturday.

Our goat would likely have to be Kyle McClellan.  I know he was credited with his 12th hold in the game, but he walked in two runs that were credited to Pineiro's line, which brought it to a one-run game.  I would guess the book is out on McClellan, because his last couple of outings have been on the shaky side.  The league probably knows more about what to look for, what to lay off of, etc.

So, after taking the second game, the Cards stood about where you'd thought they would have after two games, one up, one down.  The pitching matchups looked fairly solid for them going forward as well.

Braden Looper limited the damage, but he didn't have his best stuff.  Ryan Braun made sure of that, smashing two home runs.  The biggest goat in this game was the Cardinal offense, since Jeff Suppan was laboring early on and they never took full advantage.  I know there's a lot of talk about Pujols's supposed misadventures on the base paths, but that seems a bit overblown to me.  He got picked off, which probably was a mistake.  But the second one, where he was thrown out at third, you see all the time and it works as a guarantee that the run will get in.  The throw gets cut off and redirected, and you can make sure the run gets in before you get tagged out.  The third one was just one of those things, because Glaus hit a bullet and that would have doubled up anyone.

And while it was nice to see Ludwick hit another home run and get the Cards a little closer, that doesn't quite make up for the three strikeouts he had before that.  I'd probably give Troy Glaus the Hero tag, for getting more hits in that game than he had in the entire month of May, and I guess Skip Schumaker the Goat tag, because if he'd been able to do a little more than the 0-4, it might have been a different story offensively. 

The Cards wrap the series tonight with Adam Wainwright going against David Bush.  In theory, you'd like their chances to end the road trip on a winning note and splitting the eight games, which is a minor victory.  Wainwright has done well against the Brewers, though he'll have to work carefully to Prince Fielder.   Wainwright defeated the Brewers on April 16, allowing two runs (one earned) in 7.2 innings.  That was another of Izzy's tightrope acts, as he allowed two in the ninth before closing it out.

Bush, though, has held his own against the Redbirds.  He pitched against the Cardinals on April 15, though, and gave up three runs in six innings in a 6-1 Cardinal win.  It's not surprising, though, that LaRussa picked today for Pujols to take a breather, since Bush has been pretty hard on him in the past. 


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