Posted on August 3, 2011 at 6:45 AM
Filed Under: Heroes and Goats | Milwaukee Brewers | St. Louis Cardinals

Jaime Garcia obviously didn't have his best stuff last night.  I was unable to watch much of the first half of the game, but the linescore tells you a lot of what you need to know.  Two runs in the first, another in the second.  Then, after the Cards had taken the lead in part to his three-run home run, the Brewers score four times to go back on top in the fifth.  Granted, an error played into that, but Garcia should have been able to limit the damage.  We'll give him the Goat on this one, because even a slightly off Garcia performance could have put this one to bed much earlier.

Then again, the offense could have done the same.  The Cardinals were four of 16 with runners in scoring position, including an inning where bases-loaded, no out turned into one run only and a bases-loaded, one-out setup provided nothing.  Ground balls to middle infielders were prevalent again, making you wonder if Dave Duncan has taken his pitching philosophy to the hitter meetings.

The retaliation portion of the game made little sense (especially if you were following Brewer bloggers and writers on Twitter last night).  They hit Albert Pujols, which hopefully won't be a major thing.  Albert's hand isn't broken, which is good, but he may have to sit today.  I don't think that the Brewers were trying to hit Pujols in that situation, with two on and nobody out, but they've apparently made up and in their approach to him (witness Monday night's game as well), so I can understand the Cards sending a message when Ryan Braun came up the next inning.

However, Jason Motte (who possibly could have been acting alone due to the clubhouse climate or who may have had some thought that Tony La Russa would appreciate) could have sent the message without actually hitting Braun.  In fact, his first pitch pretty much did that.  He backed him off the plate, made it clear that things weren't acceptable, and he could have moved on.  Instead, he goes back after Braun with the next pitch and hits him.  It's a tie ball game, a tight one that the team needs to win, and you are going to put the leadoff batter on just to prove some point?  Talk about winning the battle and losing the war.  It wasn't the brightest thing to do.

It did set up the Hero of the game, though, indirectly.  Marc Rzepczynski came in for only the second time in Cardinal red.  Honestly, I'm trying to figure out TLR's bullpen usage.  You used him for two innings, then let him sit for five days?  It's not surprising that he was a little rusty and wound up walking the first batter he faced.  TLR then, apparently believing this was Trever Miller, took him out of the game and brought in Lance Lynn.  This, again, made little sense because you are then burning through your bullpen (you're on your third pitcher of the inning with nobody out) and Rzepczynski was supposed to be more than your average LOOGY, able to get out both types of batters and have a potential to move into the rotation at some time.  Why he didn't leave him in is beyond me.

Lynn, though, shone.  After allowing an infield hit, he gave up a shallow pop fly that couldn't score the runner, an infield groundout that got the force at home, and a strikeout.  Without that performance, the game could have gone a completely different way.

You have to give a lot of credit to Rafael Furcal as well.  His long running catch in the ninth inning, besides being probably the best catch we've seen at that position all year long, kept the game tied and sent it into extra innings.  Big, big play.

Matt Holliday may have had the best all-around offensive game.  His home run in the second cut into a Brewer lead, but after beating out an infield hit, he alertly stole second, meaning he could score on Lance Berkman's bloop hit, breaking the tie and sending the Cards to the bottom of the 11th with a lead.  Very smart baseball and hopefully it's a turning point in the season.

You can't talk about this game, though, without mentioning Yadier Molina.  In the top of the 10th, Molina struck out on a pitch that was well inside.  For whatever reason, if he was still upset with Rob Drake for missing the call on Skip Schumaker the night before or if he'd been wondering about the strike zone all game long, Molina completely flipped.

I don't condone anything that Molina did and I know he's going to get a pretty significant suspension.  That said, the umpire apparently had taken some acting classes (though not necessarily passed them) and wanted to get on TV.  That whole stumbling back bit?  The wiping of the face like he'd been drenched in spit?  It's a fairly obvious overreaction.  I don't know if he wanted to make sure Molina got the worst possible punishment or just is another one of these umps that likes the camera on him, but I guess it doesn't matter.  Yadi has to know he can't go off like that, and being that he's usually well-restrained (save, of course, his famous stripping of equipment tirade, which perhaps not coincidentally happened in Milwaukee as well), there must have been something that really set him off about that pitch.  Molina's stance is that Drake touched him first, so it'll be interesting to see what the league says about it.

After all of that, the two teams have to turn around and play an afternoon affair today.  Edwin Jackson goes for the Cardinals, hoping to continue the success from his debut with the club. Here's what he's done in limited time against these hitters:

The Cardinals get to face lefty Randy Wolf, which doesn't always bode well for the team. Here are his numbers:

    No pun intended, but it's really going to hurt if Albert has to sit out today. The numbers aren't good with him in that mix--they are really bad without him. Cards did get to him last time, though, scoring six runs in just five innings of work.

Before I leave you today, let me mention a link that I forgot to put into yesterday's mix.  COSFBA is a great fantasy baseball blog run by one of the more active members of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance.  On Monday, they took a look at Cardinal closer Fernando Salas.  Head on over there and see what they had to say about his success and if he'd be able to sustain it.

Cards win today and they are just 1.5 back with a three game set against these guys next week at home.  Let's see if they can shake any tiredness off and come out strong against Wolf!