A nice early season challenge for the 2008 St. Louis Cardinals, matching up with the 2007 NL Pennant winners, the Colorado Rockies.
Game 1 – Colorado 2 St. Louis 1
After a wash out of Opening Night, Opening Day Part Deux was a heart breaking 2 – 1 loss. Kyle Lohse, in his Cardinals debut, put up a steady 5 innings of scoreless ball. Probably on a pitch count (remember, Lohse was to pitch a simulated game that day against minor leaguers and had only pitched in two live games in Spring Training) Lohse was pulled after only 74 pitches. Then came another Kyle, St. Louis native Kyle McClellen. He made his major league debut and put up a solid 1-2-3 6th inning.
Meanwhile, Kip Wells [Remember Him?] was matching Lohse until the 5th inning, when Yadier Molina broke through with his and the Cardinals first home run of the year, putting the Cardinals up 1 to 0. That score held until the 8th inning, when, after a scoreless 7th from Russ Springer, Ryan Franklin came in to start the 8th and was not sharp. Location was a big problem and Troy Tulowitzki and Todd Helton greeted him with a single and a double, putting runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs. Matt Holiday followed with a slow roller up the 3rd base line that Troy Glaus could not make the easy throw to Molina on and Tulo easily scored. That type of play will not endear Glaus to fans that still pine for Scotty Rolen. After a walk to Adkins, Franklin was lifted for Randy Flores.
Now, I have been pretty critical of Flores recently, but he almost worked out of a bases loaded no outs jam, finally walking Jason Nix to force in the winner.
All in all, not a bad performance by the Birds on Bat, with the exceptions of Franklin and Glaus.
Game 2 – Colorado 3 St. Louis 8
A big offensive effort and some solid pitching led to the Cardinals first victory of the year. Todd Wellemeyer started and went 5 innings for the win, giving up only a long home run to Brad Hawpe. The same old story developed with Wellemeyer. 6 Ks over his 5 innings pitched, giving the impression that he has really good stuff, however, 3 walks and 94 pitches kept him from reaching the 6th inning. If he cannot improve that scenario, he will be a candidate to move back to the pen when the likes of Piniero, Mulder and Carp make their return from the DL.
The offense was led by Ryan Ludwick [triple, double and 3 rbis] and Rick Ankiel [home run, rbi] with three hits each and The Mang, Albert Pujols, who reached base in each of his five plate appearances. And, big ups to Rico Washington, the 30 year old minor league veteran in his rookie season with a big pinch hit double off the bench.
Game 3 – Colorado 0 St. Louis 3
This game belonged to one Brad Thompson. In his first start of the season, he went 6 and 2/3 scoreless innings, giving up only 6 hits and 2 walks while striking out a career high of 6 Rockies. He had the Rockies confused all day long with a nice assortment, featuring a diving sinker that lead to a bushel basket of ground outs.
Miles, Pujols and Glaus paced an 8 hit attack with 2 hits each, with Glaus and Pujols just missing their first homers of the season. Ankiel pitched in with a hit and an rbi and Thompson helped his cause with a hit and rbi as well.
Finally, Anthony Reyes made his first appearance as a newly minted reliever and went through Ryan Spilbourgh, Troy Tulowitzki, and Todd Helton, striking out all of them. Flashing a fastball and curveball that were seldom seen last season at Busch, Reyes looked tougher than nails. Can he adapt to that new role?
Izzy finished up with his first save of the season.
Cardinals stand at 2 – 1 on the young season. Next up, a Washington Nationals club that stands at 3 – 1 and lead by a Gold Glove candidate at 3rd base, Ryan Zimmerman.
