The Cards closed out their first homestand at their new stadium by taking two of three from the Reds, who came into St. Louis sporting a somewhat surprising 6-3 record. The longball was the story of the two Cardinals wins, as the home team slammed seven homers in Saturday and Sunday’s games, including four by Albert Pujols. Three of those came yesterday, as Pujols tied the game at 4 with a two run blast in the fifth and won the game with a dramatic walk-off two run shot to left in the ninth. This reversed a mini-slump for Albert, who entered Saturday’s game hitting .273 and left Sunday’s game batting .341 with a league-leading 8 HR and 17 RBI.
Chris Carpenter pitched like a Cy Young winner on Friday, even though he got tagged with a 1-0 loss, giving up only four hits and one run in eight innings. Sidney Ponson picked up his first win as a Cardinal on Saturday in a good but not great performance, giving up two runs in six and a third. Ponson throws a lot of pitches, and isn’t going to pitch much past the sixth inning in any game. Mark Mulder wasn’t nearly as sharp Sunday as he was in hist previous start, giving up four runs on ten hits in five innings.
Ponson and Mulder’s starts emphasized the most glaring weakness on the 2006 Cardinals - the bullpen. Mulder was in line for the win after Pujols and Scott Rolen went deep back-to-back in the fifth, but the pen had to be rescued by Pujols’ ninth-inning heroics. Ricardo Rincon and Jason Isringhausen sport ERAs of 9.00 and 15.00, respectively. Izzy is 3-for-4 in saves, but gave the Brewers a win on Thursday and has walked 5 in 6 innings, only striking out one. This is the biggest flaw Tony LaRussa needs to address, although Jim Edmonds’ sloppy defense and lack of hitting is also a concern.
Next up: the Cards start a road trip with a visit to Pittsburgh. Jason Marquis (2-0, 3.97) faces paul Maholm (0-1, 7.71).
No comments:
Post a Comment