With a 20 oz. porterhouse on the grill and the game twenty minutes away, I aim to sit on my couch and write crap about what I’m seeing on TV for the next three hours. I’ll get started once I finish the supper.

End 1st: My innards are full of medium rare beef and Carp had a nice 1-2-3 inning, with Kennedy making two difficult plays, or making two plays difficult, depending on whether you feel like being a jerk or not. Before Eckstein came up to bat, I downed a pickled herring, reprising a superstition from last season’s playoffs. It worked for Eckstein, who blooped a single to shallow left-center. P-Dub continued his crappy bat swinging from the spring by grounding into a 5-6-3 double play. El Hombre had a 3-0 count that went full before flying out to Beltran.

Top 2nd: Hilary is liveblogging the game as well. With two outs, Carp allowed a single to Moises Alou. Shawn Green tapped one over Eck’s leap. Taguchi made a throw off the line that maybe coulda gotten Alou at third. First and third with two outs, Valentin glines a 2-1 pitch straight to Pujols, who gloves it in his chest for the third out. Time for another pickled herring.

Bottom 2nd: Joe and Jon are having a grand time ripping on Eckstein. Jon Miller said he throws like “a little kid” in the top of the inning and exclaimed of Jose Reyes “now that is a shortstop’s arm” on Rolen’s 6-3 groundout. Molina had a good swing but flied out to center before Edmonds struck out looking at a well-located curve.

Top 3rd: Peter Gammons is getting into the stupid, too. Think I’m gonna have to switch to radio at the next break. Rolen starts a studly 6-4 force play to take Glavine off the basepaths after he’d gotten on with a bloop single to shallow left. Carp tried a changeup to Beltran that didn’t drop. Fortunately, Beltran blasted it a bit foul of the pole. Carp hit him on the shinguard with a fastball on the next pitch. With two outs, Delgado is up with men on first and second and jacks a double to left that Taguchi misplayed at the wall and landed hard on his rear. That’s not good for business. Pujols made a nifty barehanded snag of a Wright grounder far to the second base (his first OOZ play of 2007!) to get the third out. Time for pickled herring. The things I do for a few runs. The Gooch leads off our half of the third.

Bottom 3rd: Taguchi grounds out to Glavine on a 1-1 changeup. Adam Kennedy killed a ball that landed at the base of the wall in right center. He stretches to third for a close triple. The throw got away from Wright, but Glavine was there backing him up. Pay attention kids: that’s how a pitcher fields his position. That brings up Carpenter with one out and a runner on third. Suicide squeeze? (Joe Morgan mentions the possibility right after I typed that.) Oh crap, Carp bunts and the ball dies in the dirt right in front of the plate. Kennedy’s out on the run-down and Carp’s at first with Eckstein up. It would be epic if he jacked one out of the park here to quiet the voices in the broadcast booth. Nope, easy fly ball to the Stink-Palm that ends the inning. This pickled herring ain’t working! Maybe I should eat two pieces.

Top 4th: The Pond Scum’s offense looks to be all put together. With two outs, runners at 2nd and 3rd, Carp having trouble locating and walks Jose Reyes on five pitches to load the bases for Paul Lo Duca. Carp’s first two pitches are balls low and away. The third’s a fastball down central. Pitch four’s a sinking fastball that Lo Duca fouls into his foot. I’m thinking change here. Nope—curveball, fouled loud into the seats down the first base line. Fastball low, quite a tense at-bat. Bases loaded, full count, down by two. Oh rats. Lo Duca slaps it through Carp’s wickets, Kennedy can’t reach it and the ball rolls to Edmonds. Two runners score and it’s first and third with the good guys down by four and Carlos Beltran with a bat in his hands. Beltran hits it hard at Carp’s feet and it bounces to Jimmy Ballgame. Josh Hancock’s up in the ‘pen, five runs scored. Carp’s given up five runs through 3 2/3 IP—yeesh! Delgado just swung over a pitch in the dirt at his feet. Eckstein makes a play behind second base to end the painful inning. Let’s go score some runs, fellas. We’ll have P-Dub, Pujols, and Rolen up in this inning. Hopefully we can get Carp some rest, at least.

Bottom 4th: Mookie Wilson’s nephew-son-nephew-AND-son smokes a ball foul before striking out on a changeup. Pujols grounds out 5-3 and Rolen flies out to Moises Alou’s urine soaked mitt. No herring next half-inning.

Top 5th: David Wright leads off the fifth with a ground ball past third for the Mets’ ninth hit of the evening. The broadcasters have a brief conversation with TLR before discussing his unfortunate Spring Training incident. Carpenter strikes out Alou swinging at a curveball at his knees, then Carp induces a Shawn Green groundball to Pujols for a force at second, 3-6. Carp strikes out Valentin with a curve to end the inning. He’s at 89 pitches through five innings with Glavine leading off the sixth. If he can go six, that’d be acceptable. The bullpen’s got a rest day tomorrow, then a Kip Wells start on Tuesday followed by Braden Looper, according to ESPN. I thought Looper was pitching Tuesday’s game. [Update: I remembered wrong, ESPN has it right. Derrick Goold laid out the starting pitcher schedule a while back.]

Bottom 5th: No pickled herring this inning and our fifth hitter, Yadier Molina, leads off with a single up the middle. Here’s hoping he can hit regularly in the fifth spot against lefties. I believe he can put together a good season at the plate wearing both his batter’s and catcher’s helmets. Jimmy Ballgame comes up with no outs and a man on second and grounds into a 6-4-3 double play. He’ll get it together. Taguchi’s up now with no men on and two outs. I don’t think the pickled herring is doing anything to effect the baseball outcomes today. Sure enough, Taguchi grounds out to the pitcher (again) to end the inning. It’d be nice to chase Glavine at some point and get Duncan in the game. Maybe even Skip. Schumaker really needs to hit well this month. Rick Ankiel has taken his old job and needs plenty of playing time, so there’s no place for Skip when (if?) Encarnacion’s wrist heals up and he’s cleared to play. I don’t have any clue what’ll happen to Skip if he can’t contribute offensively at the Major League level this year. I’d like to see him get some opportunities soon so he can keep the hot hand from Spring Training. (And I don’t want Moises Alou giving him any tips on that score.)

Top 6th: Glavine grounds out, 1-3. Reyes skies a ball that Taguchi mishandles for an error, the ball bouncing off the tip of his mitt. I think I know what’s wrong. I don’t have a beer. I’ll crack open one of Anheuser Busch’s unreleased “Burnin’ Helles” craft beer and be back for the rest. Holy smokes, just the thought of beer has begun to turn around our fortunes—Lo Duca glines into a 4-3 double play. Kennedy caught the low liner on the fly and threw to first to catch Reyes off the bag (he was all the way at second by then).

Bottom 6th: Cardinal slugging leader, Adam Kennedy, leads off with a likely pinch hitter following, then the lineup turns over. Jeff‘s been at the park since hours before the first pitch. Just sent me a text message: “we look like dog shit tonight dude.” Kennedy flies out to left. I get my wish, Schumaker pinch hits for Carpenter. Takes first pitch up and away. Takes second pitch outside. Glavine comes in with a fastball strike low and away. Pitch four is down the middle with a bit taken off and Skip swings through it. The fifth pitch is low and away, Skip reaches for it and smacks it to shallow left for a single. I’m an unabashed Schumaker fan and have been since his first call-up when I saw him through a laser from the right-field wall to home plate on one hop. The runner on third barely scored ahead of the throw and everyone was amazed: me, Rick Horton, the catcher, and the scoring runner. Eckstein has a nice at-bat then strokes one down the left field line for a double that easily scores Schumaker from first. Excellent! If Skip can keep contributing, maybe even DanUp will quit picking on him. Wilson hits one up the middle. Beltran throws out Eckstein trying to score from second and P-Dub takes second on the throw. Nice play by Beltran. Hope Eckstein’s not hurt from the hard collision with Lo Duca. Pujols walks on five pitches. Men on first and second with two outs and one run scored. For what it’s worth: our win expectancy is 9.2%, according to Walkoffbalk’s win expectancy finder. Rolen’s hit by a pitch to load the bases for Molina and the wxp goes up to 13.3%. A grand slam here would rocket the wxp to 60.7%, alas, Molina breaks his bat and pops to Reyes to end our best scoring threat so far and our win expectancy drops to 5.3 percent.

Top 7th: TJ comes in an has a beautiful 1-2-3 inning. I’d have gone with Flores (who had a stellar spring) with the switch-hitting Beltran around, but TJ did a swell job. His minor league splits suggested he wouldn’t have to be a specialist, but his ML splits last season loudly screamed otherwise. Hopefully he’s adjusted.

Bottom 7th: Jimmy Ballgame’s up, facing lefty reliever Pedro Feliciano. Edmonds grounds it at the pitcher, too hot to handle, and makes it to first safely. Taguchi flies out to Moises. Kennedy grounds into a 6-4-3 double play to end the inning. I’m guessing we’ll be seeing Chris Duncan pinch hitting for TJ next inning.

Top 8th: No dice on Duncan, Miles is double switched for Kennedy, batting 9th. Randy Flores is the pitcher, batting 8th. Maybe Dunc will pinch-hit for P-Dub if there’s a right-hander on the mound. Flores gets Alou to pop-out to short and Green to fly out to shallow center. I’m liking the way his pitches look. He’s throwing strikes with a lotta movement. Another fly ball to Jim Edmonds, who looks to be getting good reads on these flies. We’ll need some offense here, fellas. Win expectancy sits at 4.5 percent. Miles leads off, followed by Eck, P-Dub, and el Hombre.

Bottom 8th: With Pedro Feliciano pitching another inning, Miles leads off with a walk. Good job, Aaron. Feliciano is removed for side-arming right-hander Joe Smith, making his major league debut after only pitching 12 2/3 IP in his entire minor league career, fewer than the 14 1/3 he pitched this spring. In ST, he had a 1.26 ERA with a 17:3 K-BB ratio. Eckstein grounds a slider through the hole and into left field. We’ve got men on first and second with no outs and Pujols at the deck and P-Dub striking out. (WXP goes from 16.6% to 6.2% with the K.) Smith gets to a 3-0 count with Smith avoiding the strikezone low. The fourth pitch is a good strike at the knees. The fifth is a ball low and outside to load the bags for ScoRo, increasing the wxp to 8.3% and Willie Randolph pulls the rookie in his major league debut responsible for two baserunners. Aaron Heilman will come in to face Rolen. You may recall that in Heilman’s last official MLB inning, he gave up a game-winning home run to Yadier Molina, who’ll bat after Rolen, barring a double play. You gotta be kidding me. Rolen smokes it up the middle and Valentin reaches it on a diving stab for a inning-ending double play. That’s tough. Props to the Mets’ middle infield defense. Sure would have preferred a coupla runs to score there, though.

Top 9th: Brad Thompson is in to pitch, vaguely aware of his team’s 1.3% win expectancy, down by four in the top of the ninth. The leadoff batter, pinch hitter David Newhan, lines a single to shallow center. Jose Reyes then singles to put runners on first and second. Brad Thompson uses the fake-to-third, throw to first move to pick Jose Reyes off first and Joe Morgan complains that the rules aren’t fair and the fake-to-third, throw to first move should be ruled a balk. Lo Duca hits one through the left-side infield to score Newhan from third and the scoring deficit grows to five runs. Two groundouts from the heart of the Mets order ends the inning. Seven of the 786 teams to have seen this scenario went on to win the game for a win expectancy of 0.9%. Billy Wagner will pitch the bottom of the ninth in a non-save opportunity.

Bottom 9th: Billy Wagner’s on the mound, facing Molina, Edmonds, and his nemesis, So Taguchi. Molina’s bat is still hot—he singles to center, a ball that dropped in front of Beltran. Edmonds Pinch hitter Soctt Spiezio flies out to shallow right-center, where Valentin makes the catch. So Taguchi continues his inexplicable dominance of Billy Wagner with a single up the middle that Valentin doesn’t reach. In a testament to how light of right-handed bats our bench is, Gary “Snow Cones” Bennett pinch hits for Thompson and pops up to Valentin for the second out. Aaron Miles represents our last out with runners at first and second and promptly flies out to right field before I can type the sentence.

Cards fall to the Mets, 6-1. Skip Schumaker and David Newhan lead the major leagues in batting average, both 1-1 for a 1.000 average. David Eckstein has a .750 batting average on the 3-4 night. Dirty Ernie plays some morose organ music and the fans file out, angrily lighting up cigarettes on the way. Here’s looking forward to Tuesday, when we won’t have to listen to Joe Morgan and Jon Miller. Let’s go win the other 161.

Later: I expect this sort of thing to be a familiar meme this season:

The Cardinals had a real shot in the eighth after getting two on with none out against Smith, but Tony La Russa, asleep at the wheel again, left Preston Wilson in to hit versus the sidearmer when he had switch-hitter Scott Spiezio available off the bench.

Groan. I suppose it’s payback for all the jokes about Moises Alou peeing on his hands. But I can’t disagree with the substantive complaint, as I wrote above and in this comment at VeB, Skip Schumaker, So Taguchi, and Preston Wilson are competing for two roster spots until Juan Encarnacion finishes rehabbing his wrist. With the AAA outfield set, there’s no playing time for Skip there. He’s got to play better than those other two outfielders. He did that in his limited opportunity today and should get nine innings to do it again on Tuesday with El Duque’s .300/.372/.538 vs. .199/.272/.338 2006 L/R split. Against a guy who struggles so badly against lefthanders, I’d definitely send out an outfield of Duncan-Edmonds-Schumaker, batting Duncan second and Skip, sixth, in front of Molina.