The St. Louis Cardinals came back with a vengeance Saturday, clubbing four home runs en route to a 12-3 win over the Cubs. With the win, the Cardinals broke the Cubs three-game winning streak, and reduced their lead in the division to six games. The rubber match is scheduled for 7:05 Sunday night on ESPN.
Pity Carlos Zambrano, who really was his own worst enemy today. Although he hit his third home run of the season in the third inning to make things a bit interesting, things really got out of control for him pretty quickly. First Skip Schumaker and Albert Pujols jacked solo home runs in the third. Then Troy Glaus, stuck in an extremely odd 0-30 streak against the Cubs, went wild; first hitting a two-run shot in the fourth inning, then upping the ante with a three-run home run in the fifth, part of a four-run inning. Frankly, Carlos got way too much plate all day long, and looked a little too strong actually, not getting quite the movement on the fastball or slider that you'd normally expect to see. Bottom line, when Felipe Lopez goes 2-4 off of you -- when did the Cards pick him up anyway? -- you know you're hitting the showers early.
About the only good thing that you can say about yesterday's game was the work of Sean Marshall, who went 2 2/3 innings of scoreless work, and continues to show why it was time for Scott Eyre to move on. I was almost prepared to say the same thing about Chad Gaudin, who came in to finish the last two innings. But when St. Louis rallied late for three more runs in the ninth, lead by a Yadier Molina two-RBI single, that pretty much went out the window. He's done nice work so far this season, but probably should have been yanked in the ninth, big deficit or not, as it was clear he wasn't going to be effective. Actually, it probably would have been a good time to get Kerry Wood in for an inning of work, but the disappearing man was available, but not really yesterday. Kerry says he's ready to go, which was funny to me, given Lou Piniella's post-game comment about using him yesterday only if he "really, really needed to get him in". Hmm. Either way, I'd look for him to see some work this evening, as Lou was quite defensive at reporters who suggested that Kerry would be hidden in the bullpen another day, so as to give him a couple of more days before the Braves series in Atlanta.
Well, here's to a series win, and a blowout tonight. And as a small site note, Cubbie Nation is transitioning Internet Service Providers, with the change tentatively scheduled for Tuesday night. We expect the site to be unavailable for as much as a few hours.
Pity Carlos Zambrano, who really was his own worst enemy today. Although he hit his third home run of the season in the third inning to make things a bit interesting, things really got out of control for him pretty quickly. First Skip Schumaker and Albert Pujols jacked solo home runs in the third. Then Troy Glaus, stuck in an extremely odd 0-30 streak against the Cubs, went wild; first hitting a two-run shot in the fourth inning, then upping the ante with a three-run home run in the fifth, part of a four-run inning. Frankly, Carlos got way too much plate all day long, and looked a little too strong actually, not getting quite the movement on the fastball or slider that you'd normally expect to see. Bottom line, when Felipe Lopez goes 2-4 off of you -- when did the Cards pick him up anyway? -- you know you're hitting the showers early.
About the only good thing that you can say about yesterday's game was the work of Sean Marshall, who went 2 2/3 innings of scoreless work, and continues to show why it was time for Scott Eyre to move on. I was almost prepared to say the same thing about Chad Gaudin, who came in to finish the last two innings. But when St. Louis rallied late for three more runs in the ninth, lead by a Yadier Molina two-RBI single, that pretty much went out the window. He's done nice work so far this season, but probably should have been yanked in the ninth, big deficit or not, as it was clear he wasn't going to be effective. Actually, it probably would have been a good time to get Kerry Wood in for an inning of work, but the disappearing man was available, but not really yesterday. Kerry says he's ready to go, which was funny to me, given Lou Piniella's post-game comment about using him yesterday only if he "really, really needed to get him in". Hmm. Either way, I'd look for him to see some work this evening, as Lou was quite defensive at reporters who suggested that Kerry would be hidden in the bullpen another day, so as to give him a couple of more days before the Braves series in Atlanta.
Well, here's to a series win, and a blowout tonight. And as a small site note, Cubbie Nation is transitioning Internet Service Providers, with the change tentatively scheduled for Tuesday night. We expect the site to be unavailable for as much as a few hours.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment