The Cardinals are back in front in this series because of eight great innings of three hit ball. Both he and Looper combined to throw only 93 pitches as the Tigers hacked away. This was a game I expected the Cardinals to win and had they not, I probably might have thought it was the beginning of the end. Now if Jeff Suppan can do his job tonight, the Cardinals could be one win away from winning it all.
The Cardinals big innings came in the fourth and seventh innings. In the fourth, Jim Edmonds drove home two runs with a bases loaded double to put the Cardinals on the board. Then in the seventh, with runners on first and second, Albert Pujols hit a comebacker to Joel Zumaya in what looked like a tailor made double play. Instead of going to second base, Zumaya went to third and threw the ball well behind the thirdbaseman (Inge) and two more runs scored. Even those two runs ended up being unneccesary though.
The Cardinals added one more insurance run in the eighth when So Taguchi made it home on a wild pitch. Looper came in to relieve Carpenter for the ninth and he picked up right where Carpenter left off and retired the Tigers in order.
Tonight’s game will have Jeff Suppan throw against Jeremy Bonderman. There’s no doubt this is a huge game. We can either let the Tigers back into this thing, or pretty much put them away.
