The Cardinals took an 4-0 lead in the first inning of Wednesday’s game against the Mets.  New York starter Pedro Martinez struggled, and the Cardinals sluggers looked as if they had his number.

Aaron Miles and Skip Schumaker both singled to set the table for the Cardinals in the top of the first, Schumaker would score on Rick Ankiel’s single to center.  Also in the first, Troy Glaus hit his 12^th homerun of the season to give the Cardinals a 4-0 lead.  The game was stopped for rain in the third and play resumed 47 minute later.  Martinez did return to the mound; but seemed to be pitching better and more aggressively than he did in early innings.  After the runs he gave up in the first, the only other run he allowed was homer to Rick Ankiel, giving the Cardinals a 5-4 lead in the fifth inning.

Joel Pineiro started the game for the Cardinals.  He pitched 5 innings, giving up four runs on 11 hits, while striking out four and walking just one.  The Cardinal’s bullpen had some trouble as Kyle McClellan gave up one earned run in 1 2/3 innings of relief.  Mark Mulder allowed an inherited run to score as well as two earned runs in his 1/3 inning of work.  However, Springer, Perez and Franklin kept the Mets in check with Ryan Franklin getting the win. After the Mets took the lead 7-5 in the top of the seventh, Aaron Heilman entered the game in the bottom of the eighth and hit Ryan Ludwick with a pitch, Pedro Feliciano would come into the game and threw just one pitch to Chris Duncan that he sent over the fence in right field to tie the game at 7.  In the bottom of the ninth, it was Troy Glaus’s walk off homer that won the game for the Cardinals 8-7.

First pitch is scheduled for 8:15 p.m.  Mitchell Boggs will pitch for the Cardinals and the Mets will counter with Mike Pelfrey

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The Cardinals lost to the New York Mets 7-4 on Wednesday night.  St. Luis took an early lead and looked as if they were well on their way to another victory, but the Mets had other plans. 

The Cardinals scored in the bottom of the first, Aaron Miles doubled to lead off the inning and then Rick Ankiel long homerun to.  In the second inning, Yadier Molina lead off the inning with a single to center, he would advance to second on a sac bunt by the pitcher, and score on a double by Skip Schumaker.  Down 7-3 in the sixth inning the Cardinals looked as if they might start a rally; Troy Glaus doubled to lead off the inning, and would take third a single to right by Chris Duncan.  Glaus would score on a sac fly by Molina that was caught by Ryan Church in foul territory.  However, pitcher Brad Thompson popped up a bunt attempt,why they didn’t use a pinch hitter there is beyond me, but worked out for the Mets, as Brendan Ryan popped to second to end the innings. 

Todd Wellemeyer did not have his good stuff.  In his five innings of work, he gave up 12 hits, 6 earned runs, while walking two and striking out two.  Brad Thompson pitched four innings in relief allowing two hits, and homerun to David Wright.

First pitch is scheduled for 8:05 p.m.  Joel Pineiro will pitch for the Cards and the Mets will have Pedro Martinez on the mound.   

Cardinals Blog

The Cardinals opened a four game series against the New York Mets on Monday night.  They beat the lackluster Mets 7-1; taking advantage of the Mets lack of offense, terrible pitching and worse defense. 

Kyle Lohse got his 10^th win of the season.  He pitched well against the Mets, holding them scoreless through five.  He allowed only one run off five hits in seven innings of work.  He walked two, and struck out four. 

The Cardinal’s offense took advantage of John Maine early, scoring in each of the first five innings.  The Mets made three errors in the game and the Cardinals took advantage, scoring two runs on errors. 

Skip Schumaker walked to lead off the first, he advanced to third on a single to right by Aaron Miles.  Schumaker would score, and Miles would take second on a single to right by Albert Pujols.  Miles would score, but Troy Glaus did not get credit for an RBI because he hit into a double play.  The Cardinals scored again in the second, Yadier Molina lead off the inning with a single to right, he advanced to second on a ground out by Brenden Ryan and would score on a fielding error by Luis Castillo.  The Cardinals tacked another run in the third when Rick Ankiel singled to lead off the inning and came around to score on a one out double by Troy Glaus.  In the fourth inning, with two out, Aaron Miles hit a single to third baseman David Wright, and took second on Wright’s throwing error.  Miles would score on a single by Pujols.  In the fifth inning, with John Maine out of the game and Carlos Muniz on the mound, Glaus was hit by a pitch to lead of the inning and would score when Chris Duncan hit his fifth homer of the season. 

 Tuesday night’s game is scheduled for an 8:05 p.m. start.  Todd Wellemeyer will be on the mound for the Cardinals and Tony Armas will make his for start for the Mets.

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Tuesday night at the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati ended with a Redbird win, however, what was on most fans minds was the image of of our superstar, Albert Pujols, being carried off the field.  Despite rumors of elbow trouble at the start of the season, Pujols was quietly having the best start to a season in his incredible career.  Now that season will be stalled by a strain in his left calf suffered while running out a grounder to first in the seventh inning of last night’s game.

To be honest, from the look on his face when he fell to the ground, I thought it was a tear.  After aggravating his left calf muscle last week against the Nationals, I think we are all lucky that this time it is only a strain and not a tear.  A tear would mean months, maybe the rest of the season, with Albert landed on the disabled list.  A strain means that he can probably recover and rejoin the lineup in a couple of weeks.

At the beginning of the season, Prince Albert stood alone as the one glimmer of consistency that we could count on.  No one could have predicted how well our starting pitching has done thus far, and thanks to our rotation and Ryan Ludwick’s breakout season, we find ourselves tied for the fourth best record in baseball.

Albert’s absence means that Ludwick, Troy Glaus, and Rick Ankiel are going to have to start picking up the offensive slack.  Glaus has started to play better in the warm weather, having hit five home runs in eight games just recently.  Ankiel will likely hit just as he has for the rest of the season with lots of strikeouts and moments of power.  Ludwick has been absolutely incredible for our team, and if he can continue to produce like he has been, there is no reason why anyone else should see the three spot while Pujols is on the DL.  Our post-Izzy bullpen has shown that they are ready to regain our trust on the mound, and with Yadier Molina and Skip Schumaker having stellar offensive seasons, I don’t see any reason to panic with Albert out of the lineup for a few weeks.

The likely call-up to replace Pujols on the roster will unfortunetaly be Chris Duncan.  After struggling during the start of the season, Duncan was sent down to Triple-A in order to find his swing, which apparently he still has not found.  Since being sent down, Duncan is hitting .190 with no home runs.  I wish that our farm team had someone that was ready to step up instead of Duncan, but Chris seems to be our only option.

Last night was a great game to watch as we saw Mitchell Boggs make his first start as a Cardinal. Boggs had a great start pitching 5 innings with only two runs on four hits.  The runs came from Joey Votto’s fourth inning two-run homer.  With Wellemeyer, Piniero, and Wainwright all on the DL, it is good to see we can rely on our rookies while they recover.  Our bullpen also shined as they only gave up one hit and one walk in 4 innings of work, highlighted by a three strikeout ninth inning by Russ Springer.

Ludwick (15), Ankiel(9), Pujols(16) all hit longballs.  It’s good see our power break out like this, but it is also nice that the teams knows that we can win without it.  We have accumulated a lot of wins this season by simply executing small ball and smart baserunning.  Brendan Ryan also had a great night as he went 2-3 with three runs scored and two stolen bases.

The Performance of the game goes to Ludwick.  Ryan went 4-5 with 4 RBI’s, two doubles, and a home run.  He is the first cardinal of the season to reach the 50-RBI mark.  He has been absolutely incredible for the Cardinals this year, basically doing everything we expected out of Glaus plus hitting for average.  He is now slugging .667 with a .388 OBP raising his OPS to 1.055, which is good for fifth best in the Majors behind Lance Berkman, Chipper Jones, Albert Pujols and Milton Bradley.   The Cardinals are now 39-27 and 2.5 games behind the cubbies.

We are 3-1 so far on this road trip, and hopefully we can take at least one more game in this series to go back home 4-2 or even 5-1.  As hot as the Cubs have been, the Cardinals have no let them gain much ground.

Remember to vote your Cardinals into the All-star game.  Ludwick really deserves a spot on the roster.  Right now Pujols is third in first-baseman voting behind Derrek Lee!?!?!, thats ridiculous, get your votes in so we can see some red at Yankee Stadium in July!

Cardinals Blog

The St. Louis Cardinals picked up a big win on Thursday night as they held on and defeated the Houston Astros by the score of 3-2.  It was a close game all game long and the Astros made things interesting with a Lance Berkman home run in the ninth inning but they still fell short by one run.

Kyle Lohse finally picked up his fifth win of the season in the game.  Lohse tossed six innings while allowing five hits and one run.  The one run he gave up was a solo home run to Carlos Lee in the seventh inning.  After Lohse was pulled from the game, Kyle McClellan, Ron Villone, Chris Perez, and Ryan Franklin all pitched in relief.  Franklin gave up the solo home run to Berkman but then was able to close out the game and get the save.

Chris Duncan had a two run single in the first inning that scored Albert Pujols and Ryan Ludwick.  Pujols also had a solo home run in the sixth inning that gave the Cardinals their third run in the game.

Cardinals Blog

The St. Louis Cardinals blew a big lead against the Pittsburgh Pirates as they lost 11-5 on Thursday.  Actually, I should say that Jason Isringhausen and Ron Villone blew the game for the Cardinals.  They combined to give up seven runs the final two innings of the game.

Isringhausen took the loss for the Cardinals as he dropped to 1-5 on the season.  Just a terrible performance by Izzy and Villone.  Starting pitcher Joel Pineiro only pitched five innings as he was taken out of the game after giving up six hits and four runs.

Chris Duncan had two rbi to lead the Cardinals at the plate.  Rick Ankiel, Troy Glaus, and Yadier Molina all had one rbi in the game.

All I can blog about is how bad of a series this ended up being for the Cardinals.  The Cubs won once again and now the Cards are down two games in the division.  Cardinals Blog

The St. Louis Cardinals completed a short two game series sweep of the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday afternoon with a 5-2 victory.  The win over the Reds puts the Cardinals up half a game in the divsion as the Cubs and Brewers will play each other tonight.

Braden Looper pitched six innings to pick up the win which was his fourth of the season.  Looper gave up seven hits and two runs in the game.  Jason Isringhausen pitched the ninth inning to pick up his ninth save of the season.

At the plate, Aaron Miles and Rick Ankiel both had two RBI in the game.  Chris Duncan scored the Cardinals first run of the game on a wild pitch in the second inning.

The Cardinals are playing some good baseball and they definately are doing it at the right time.  The Cardinals will have Thursday off before they take on the Chicago Cubs in Chicago.  Another big divisional series coming up.

Cardinals Blog

The St. Louis dropped a divisional game to the Cincinnati Reds by the score of 4-3 on Monday night.  The Cardinals just couldn’t get over the hump after giving up four early runs to the Reds.  The Cardinals left 16 guys on base and Chris Duncan left five of them on base himself.

Todd Wellemeyer gave up seven hits and four earned runs over six innings as he took the loss for the Cardinals.  Wellemeyer didn’t pitch that bad, there just wan’t much offense to back up his pitching performance.

Randy Flores, Russ Springer, and Ryan Franklin pitched the final three innings of the game.  Flores gave up three hits and Franklin gave up one hit.  Good job by the three pitchers as they did not allow any runs to score.

Rick Ankiel led the Cardinals at the plate with a solo home run in the fifth inning.  Troy Glaus and Cesar Izturis both had an RBI as well.  Izturis was making his return after taking some games off with a bruised arm.

The Cardinals are now one full game behind the Chicago Cubs in the Central Division.

Th St. Louis Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Brewers 6-1 on Tuesday night as Braden Looper picked up the win and moved to 3-0 on the season.  With the win, the Cardinals record now sits at 10-4 and atop the central division.  It is always nice to pick up a divisional win, especially against the Brewers.

Looper pitcher five innings, allowing five hits and one earned run.  He did walk five batters and struckout five batters.  If he hadn’t walked so many batters, he would have pitched more then five innings.

Kyle McClellan, Ryan Franklin, and Anthony Reyes pitched the final four innings without giving up a hit.  That is some great production out of the bullpen.

Skip Schumaker led the Cardinals with two RBI while Chris Duncan, Adam Kennedy, and Cesar Izturis all had one RBI.

Cardinals Blog