Series Preview: The Astros come in hot, winners of their last five games and scoring over 40 runs in those wins. That will be the biggest variable of this three game series, the Cardinals starting pitching versus the Astros beefed up offense. Earlier in the year the starters, sans Thompson’s short outing, handled the Astros offense in a series win in Houston. Here are the pitching matchups:
Shawn Chacon (0-0, 2.77 ERA) vs. Braden Looper (3-1, 5.49 ERA) – Chacon comes into this game off four straight quality starts, but does not have a win to show for it, in fact, he has yet to have a decision this year. The Astros have lost three of his four starts, including a 5 – 3 loss at the hands of the Cardinals on April 8th. Looper is coming off his worst outing of the year, a three inning loss to the San Francisco Giants. Looper has not given the Cardinals full six innings since his first start of the season. Looper needs to start to feel the heat, as Mulder is on the horizon and will take a roster spot that is currently held by either Todd Wellemeyer or Looper.
Roy Oswalt (2-3, 6.00 ERA) vs. Adam Wainwright (2-1, 2.73 ERA) – Oswalt seems to be coming around, having won his last two starts, allowing only four earned runs over 14 innings pitched. Additionally, Oswalt gave up 30 hits over 16 innings pitched in his first three starts, but gave up only 11 hits in his last 14 innings pitched. I watched some of his start versus the Phillies and his velocity was back up in the 93-94 range, so it appears that the demise of Roy-O might not yet be occurring. Wainwright was not as sharp in his last start, a no decision against the Brew Crew. He was coming off a 115 pitch effort before that start and it appeared to sap a little off his normal assortment of pitches. However, showing that he has the make-up of a true #1, he still pitched seven innings and provided his team an opportunity to win the game, which they did in the 9th that day.
Brandon Backe (1-2, 4.15 ERA) vs. Kyle Lohse (2-0, 2.54 ERA) – Backe has been pretty good outside of a start versus the Phillies at Philly. Certainly the sub-plot for this one will be Backe against Albert Pujols, considering their brush up when the Cardinals were down in Houston. Not a good thing for Mr. Backe, AP is 3 for 10 with 3 walks against Backe, and those three hits were all bombs. Lohse had his shortest outing of the year his last time out against the Brewers and needs to recapture his early season form against the Astros.
April 25 – Houston 3 St. Louis 2
Wow, what a tough loss. This one will sting quite a bit if the Cardinals cannot turn around and beat their nemesis Roy O. Braden Looper, in need of a strong outing, delivered big time. Seven strong, allowing only 2 hits and one walk. Franklin covered the 8th and Izzy was brought in to close it out. If only it worked that way. Izzy, after striking out Matsui, gave up an oppo field single that just scooted under the glove of 3rd sacker Aaron Miles [Miles was in to relieve Troy Glaus, who obvious was having problems with his eyes during his two plate appearances, constantly stepping out to wipe them] and then a triple to Tejada that gave the Astros their first sniff of scoring. A Berkman sac fly to tie the game was followed by a bomb by Carlos Lee [who can now officially call Izzy his beotch], and Izzy was on the hook for not only a blown save, but also the loss.
The Cards showed some fight, as Brendan Ryan lead off the 9th with a single, stole second, and moved to third with one out on Skip Schumaker’s ground out to 2nd. But Rick Ankiel continued a disturbing trend, striking out on a pitch in his eyes and leaving his 7th runner at third with less than 2 outs. AP was then walked and Chris Duncan popped out to short after being sawed off.
Tough, tough loss. Once again, as was seen in Pittsburgh against Ian Snell, the Cardinals had a starting pitcher on the ropes but could not get them out of the game. Shawn Chacon actually ended up putting up his 5th straight quality start, even though he was absolutely shaky from the start.
April 26 – Houston 3 St. Louis 4
A walk off victory is always good for what ails you, and that is just what the Cardinals got when Skip Schumaker delivered in the bottom of the 9th to make a winner out of the Cardinals established number one, Adam Wainwright. Brian Barton pinch hit for Jason LaRue to lead off the bottom of the 9th and walked. Ryan Ludwick was on deck when Barton walked, but he was called back and Wainwright hit for himself in a situation that called for the sac bunt. However, Wainwright pushed the bunt too hard up the first base line and the left-handed fielding Berkman was able to nip Barton at second for a force out. Brendan Ryan (are we sure that Cesar Izturis does not need to go on the DL?) singled to center to push Wainwright to 2nd, and Izturis then pinch ran for him. That set the stage for Schumaker’s first walk off hit, a solid single to LF that Carlos Lee ole’d.
The Astros struck first in the game on a Kaz Matsui homer off Wainwright in the first. The Cardinals got to Oswalt in the 3rd on a two RBI double by Pujols and a sac fly by Troy Glaus for a 3 to 1 lead. Wainwright, a bulldog to the end, surrendered solo home runs to Berkman in the 4th and 7th innings. LaRussa stayed with Wainwright all the way through for a complete game, even in the face of a mounting pitch count and struggling with control in the 9th. A nice strikeout of Hunter Pence [I think Hunter fits in San Fran] set the stage for the 9th inning rally.
Tidbit #1: Look for Wainwright to be pulled at between 90 and 100 pitches in his next start.
Tidbit #2: Look for the Cardinals home run drought [homerless in their last 8 games] to end in tomorrow’s tilt against Brandon Backe.
April 27 – Houston 1 St. Louis 5
A nice series win over the Astros after losing a heart breaker on Friday night. Kyle Lohse rebounded from his short four inning start against the Brewers at Miller Park with a strong six inning effort at Busch III to move his record to 3 – 0. Lohse allowed one run on four hits and a walk while striking out three. A second Kyle, McClellan, finished off three innings for the old time save, allowing no hits while adding two strikeouts.
Troy Glaus moved off the snide with a 5th inning bomb to the grass in center field that followed up a 2-run double by Ryan Ludwick (hey, look, somebody made an opposing pitcher pay for walking Pujols!). Pujols capped the scoring with a bomb to dead-center in the 7th inning, extending his current hit streak to eight games and his season-opening stretch of reaching safely to 26 games.
Brandon Backe continued to act like a little punk wannabe in the 5th after being tagged for four runs. With Molina at the plate, the home plate umpire (Jim Joyce) called time out just before Backe moved into his wind-up. Thinking it was Molina that made the move, Backe started jawing with Molina. The very next pitch was high and tight to Molina, and a bench clearing shoving match ensued. Someone on the Astros might want to gag that boy at some point in the future. [Insert your own Hunter Pence joke here]
Good series win, especially in light of the Cubs series loss to the Nats and some tough pitching match-ups in the upcoming Cincy series.
