"Phat" Albert

It's time for my weekly St. Louis Cardinal update. This week has been an exciting week. During the past three days, the Houston Astros had been in St. Louis for a three game series against the Cardinals. This was a very important series for both teams. Monday night was a fantastic game for the Cardinals. Fortunately for the Cardinals, Chris Carpenter was masterful. He pitched a complete game shut out. For those of you who don't know baseball, that means he pitched a complete nine inning game and didn't surrender a single run. The Cardinals won the game 7-0.

Tuesday night was a real nail biter. Andy Pettitte started for the Astros and only made it to the third inning because of an injury, but surrendered a two run homerun to former Astro, Preston Wilson, before leaving the game. Jeff Weaver, the Cardinal starter, struggled in the game and the scoring seemed to go back and forth between the two teams. Going into the bottom of the ninth, the Cardinals were trailing by a run. The Astros brought in Brad Lidge to "close the deal." The Cards managed to get a couple of guys on base by way of a single (by John Rodriquez) and a batter, Scott Speizo, who was hit by a pitch. Then, the moment that made me go a little ape shit with anticipation...ALBERT PUJOLS comes to the plate to face Brad Lidge. Some of you may remember Albert's walk off home run against Lidge in the NLCS last year. It was an awesome moment. Well, Albert lives for these high stress moments...where the outcome of the game is riding on him. He almost always produces in these situations. With a one ball, two strike count, Albert's bat breaks as he shoots a pitch into the left field corner. Two runs come home on the double by Pujols and the CARDINALS WIN! The final score was 6-5. I was so excited I could hardly even sleep that night. I love those kind of games.

Yesterday's game was a bit of a downer. Oswalt was fantastic for the Astros and Jason Marquis was horrible for the Cardinals. He didn't even make it past the second inning. The Cardinal bullpen held the Astros with the exception of a Lance Berkman solo home run, but the Cardinals could never recover. The scored one run the bottom of the ninth to avoid a shut out. The final score was 5-1, Astros.

So, the Cardinals won the series 2 games to 1. I consider this one big hurdle down for the Cards. They come to Houston next week for a four game series. I do not expect this to be an easy series for the Cardinals. The Astros have some excellent starting pitchers and are always tough at home. The Cardinals need to focus on playing great baseball in the meantime and maybe add to their lead over Cincinnati and Houston in the next few days. That will help take some of the pressure off of the four game series with Houston next weekend.

Until tomorrow...GO CARDINALS! GO CARDINALS! GO CARDINALS! GO CARDINALS! (I have to say it four times because I am superstitious...and OCD!)

I leave you with a quote:

"Baseball players are smarter than football players. How often do you see a baseball team penalized for too many players on the field."
--Jim Boulton