Game #6

BREWERS 8, CARDINALS 7

Tonight was fun game.  Here's the boxscore.

The Cardinals had their first test this season against a left handed starter (Randy Wolf), and Tony La Russa went righty happy on us with an all-right-handed lineup.  Though I didn't agree with the order, I liked La Russa's choices.  The Cardinals did hit Wolf fairly well today, but could not capitalize on a couple of chances for big innings.  However, the offense was still able to score seven runs, thanks in large part to the power of Albert Pujols and Matt Holliday.  

It looked like the Brewers were on their way to a nice, clean victory on Sunday night until things got messy once again against all-time saves leader Trevor Hoffman.    Down 7-4 in the ninth, the Cardinals managed to tie it up on a two-run home run by Albert Pujols, his second homer of the day, followed by a solo shot to dead center hit by Matt Holliday.  The Cardinals can take a lot of pride in freezing Hoffman at 593 saves.  Unfortunately, they could not come away with the victory this time as the Brewers won on a walk-off home run by Casey McGehee.  You may remember McGehee having a monster series against the Cardinals in the first week of September last season, where he went 5 for 11 with nine RBIs.  He came back to haunt the Cardinals today.

Aside from one bad pitch by Kyle McClellen to surrender the game winning home run, the bullpen performed well today. Trevor Miller, Blake Hawksworth, and Dennys Reyes combined for 3 and 1/3 scoreless innings following a rare bashing of Chris Carpenter.  Carpenter gave up seven runs, but two were unearned due to a bad inning defensively by David Freese.  Freese made two errors in the third inning that led to the two unearned runs.  Freese now has three errors on the young season, so it has clearly been a rough start defensively for Freese.

I am noticing a trend with Carpenter where once in a while, he will have just an ugly start like he did last night.  Of course, Carp still has the ability to dominate and is still one of the best pitchers in the National League, but I do get a different feeling with Carpenter from how I felt about him in his Cy Young season in 2005.  In 2005, you would just assume Carpenter would dominate each game, and you would likely get a Cardinal victory.  Now, I feel 90% sure that he'll pitch a good game.  I'm certainly not saying, "Stick a fork in him, he's done!"  I'm just saying he is not quite as automatic as he used to be, but he is still pretty damn good.

That is all for today.  I hope you all enjoy the home opener.  I don't care what anybody says, no city presents Opening Day like St. Louis.  Nothing can top the Cydesdales rounding the field, followed by all of the red and white convertables carrying the players and coaches, and all this is going on with that catchy "Here Comes the King" tune.  It does not get better than that.

Boxscore courtesy of mlb.com.