Game #30

CARDINALS 4, PIRATES 3

Yadier Molina is proving to be as crucial to this team as he's ever been. For a team that has experienced offensive inconsistency to start this season, Molina has been picking them up day in and day out. "Dependability" defines Yadier Molina.

Molina drove in three of the four Cardinal runs tonight, including the game winner in the top of the ninth, and could have had four RBI if not for a missed slide into home plate by Matt Holliday. On the much brighter side for Holliday, he had a four hit game tonight. Holliday just can't have a satisfactory game these days.

Chris Carpenter went seven innings, allowing two earned runs on eight hits. He wasn't invincible as shown by those eight hits, but Carp, being the great pitcher that he is, prevented the runs from scoring, and that's all that matters. He also added eight more strikeouts to his total. Carpenter is fourth in the majors in strikeouts, now with 47 K's.

Carpenter didn't get the win; Ryan Franklin did. Carpenter's win went down the drain when Molina let a passed ball pitched by Franklin through his legs that allowed the tying run to score. Yadi more than made up for it, of course. And even though Carpenter clearly deserved his fifth win on the season tonight, the win was very much earned by Franklin as well. Franklin got the Cardinals out of a scary eighth inning jam, and pitched around a runner at second base, the potential tying run, to close out the escape-like victory.

Losing this game would have been a tragedy for the Cardinals. The Pirates made too many mistakes to even recall. When you're playing a team that atrocious and they're basically handing the game to you, you'd better win it. Losing would have been an utter embarrassment for the team. That may sound a bit extreme, but it's true.

Albert Pujols went an uncharacteristic 0 for 5 tonight, and to make it more uncharacteristic, it's an 0 for 5 at PNC Park, a place where Pujols loves to hit. In 325 at bats at PNC Park in his career, Pujols is batting .389 with a .469/.731/1.045 line of OBP/SLG/OPS.

And while on the subject of Pujols, let me just say that although he does look like he's more uncomfortable at the plate this season, chasing pitches out of the zone and striking out more often, Pujols is still producing his regular numbers. His line so far, including batting average, OBP, slugging percentage and OPS, is .313/.402/.574/.976. Not bad.

Boxscore courtesy of mlb.com.