Game # 21

CARDINALS 6, BRAVES 0

What an ugly game for the struggling Atlanta Braves. The Braves played some lost defense early on and starter Kenshin Kawakami threw two wild pitches, each leading to runs scored. The Braves losing streak now hits eight.

Jason Heyward is the hands down Rookie of the Year in the National League? I'm sure he will have a great year and be the favorite, but I think he's got some legitimate competition from Jaime Garcia, if this terrific start is indeed legit. I think it is. I don't expect him to be masterful every game. I'm not ruling out some bad games by the rookie. But he could give Heyward a run at that NL Rookie of the Year award. Garcia dominated Heyward's Braves today pitching seven shutout innings in route to his second win of the season.

Though the Cardinals did get some help from the Braves' defense and Kawakami's wild pitches, the bats had a good day. And none of the runs were scored on homers! Astounding! A couple of players on the rise who had been struggling are David Freese and Skip Schumaker. Schumaker had a two hit night and scored two of the runs. That's what the lead off hitter is supposed to do. Freese, who had an RBI last night, drove in two tonight with a bases loaded single in the fifth inning.

One player who is not on the rise and is starting to show a disturbing inability to deliver timely hits: Matt Holliday. The clean up hitter. And he's been doing everything but "cleaning up." Holliday is batting .111 with runners in scoring position, and has been awful at Busch Stadium this season. But the good news is that it's April, and I'm certainly not loony enough to start acting like the Cardinals should be regretting paying him $120 million for seven years. It doesn't work that way. A seven year deal isn't a bust after one bad month. And Holliday has a slight history of starting slow. He'll heat up. If you think this will continue for the entire season, or for the entire seven years for that matter, then you're out of your mind.

Adam Wainwright will try to lead the Cardinals to a four game sweep tomorrow afternoon. The Braves turn to Jair Jurrjens, a very talented young pitcher off to a rough 0-2 start, to put an end to this messy start to Atlanta's season. I feel like this Braves' team is good enough to win the NL Wild Card. I can't believe they've lost eight straight now. But that's baseball.

Boxscore courtesy of mlb.com.