What a weird season. The NL Central is probably one of the worst divisions in baseball and the Cardinals are limping into the final week with things pretty much in hand. The Astros are making things interesting and are now four back in the loss column after they swept us. I wonder how many playoffs teams have existed that had three eight game losing streaks. If the Cards drop their next three, they’ll have done just that this year.
All of the games against Houston were relatively close. Thursday’s game was probably the most disappointing though. Chris Carpenter was knocked around and you don’t want to see that rolling into the playoffs. He gave up six runs on nine hits with five strikeouts in eight innings of work. Preston Wilson scored twice in the 6-5 loss.
Friday’s game was a carbon copy of Thursday’s down to the late inning come back. Chris Narveson made his first career start and lasted four solid innings. It was the pen that lost this one though. Adam Wainwright gave up two in the eighth and Brandon Looper gave up two in the ninth to blow the 5-2 lead. Chris Duncan hit homerun number 19 and Ronnie Belliard and David Eckstein both went yard.
On Saturday. David Eckstein’s RBI double tied it up for the Cards in the ninth but Tyler Johnson gave up a walk off three run homerun as the pen lost another game. Duncan hit his 20th homerun and Eckstein had three this and two runs in the 7-4 loss.
Not a lot of drama in last night’s game. The Cards just got beat. Once again it was the pen that gave up a four run seventh inning in the 7-3 loss. Jeff Weaver was actually okay in his six innings. Chris Duncan had a single, two walks and two runs.
Next up is three games against the Padres, who looked like they’d be the Cards first round opponent but not as much now with the resurgence of the Phillies. It’d be nice to win a couple of games and lock this division up by the weekend.
