All of sudden, Coors Field is a pitchers park. There were two shutouts this week, and in the other game, the losing team scored only one run. Very strange year.
Jeff Francis shut out the Cardinals on Monday. All the Cards could muster were two hits and they didn’t draw a walk. Anthony Reyes dropped to 2-4 and he gave up six runs on nine hits and one walk in 5 1/3 innings.
Chris Carpenter got the Cardinals back on track on Tuesday. He and two relievers combined to throw an eight hit shutout. Carpenter improved to 10-4. The only run of the entire game came on Albert Pujols solo homerun, his 33rd of the season.
Jeff Suppan got things done yesterday. He gave up only one run on five hits and two walks through six innings. The pen was perfect through the final three frames, so give them a big assist. Jim Edmonds was three for three with a homerun and two runs scored.
Next up for the Cardinals is a four game set against their archrivals, the Chicago Cubs, at Wrigley Field. The Cardinals are sitting on a 5 1/2 game lead, so hopefully with three wins in Chicago, they can pad that a little more and head into August in a comfortable situation.
