While you’d like to see a bigger lead, four and a half games isn’t so bad considering where we were at this time a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, the Cardinals appear to be going into one of those slumps. Hopefully they’ll be able to nip this one against the Astros before it gets out hand.
The one good game came in the series opener. Scott Spiezio homered twice and drove in three runs and Jeff Weaver threw five solid innings. Weaver has really been throwing well lately and I like our chances more if his arm is working for us. Aaron Miles had two hits and two runs in the 6-2 win.
Friday’s game was just plain ugly. Anthony Reyes was bounced in the third inning and the pen didn’t fare much better. All the Cardinals managed was a single run, but ten more would have just made it a close loss. Juan Encarnacion hit a solo homerun for that one run in the 13-1 loss.
On Saturday, the Cards ran into Brandon Webb. He held the Cardinals to a single hit in a complete game shutout. In the meantime, a decent start by Jason Marquis went to waste.
Yesterday, the Cards blew a 7-4 lead. The Diamondbacks scored three in the seventh and two in the eighth to finish off the series as the Cards were handed another loss. Jeff Suppan pitched a fair game but again, that went to waste because of the poor pitching by the pen. Albert Pujols hit homerun number 45 and Chris Duncan and Scott Spiezo both went yard as well.
Houston rolls into town for three games. We could bury one of our competitors in the NL Central right here and now. Hopefully the Cards take advantage of this chance to do just that.
