Following the game on television and via gameday, the Cardinals take on the Pirates to conclude a short two-game series. The Brewers and Cubs have both lost already today. A win tonight puts the Cardinals 1.5 back from Chicago in the NL Central.
Nice looking lineup, with an outfield of Ludwick-Schumaker-Barton and Brendan Ryan making his first start at shortstop and batting ninth. With the talented lefthander Gorzellany on the mound for the Bucks, Aaron Miles is playing 2nd and batting in front of the pitcher.
Top First: Skip draws an easy walk. Barton grounds a double play ball to second but legs out the throw. Pujols walks to bring up the clean-up hitter, Ryan Ludwick. Lud the Stud’s been impressive this season, performing as projected. With an 0-1 count, Brian Barton gets caught stealing. Badly. He left before Gorzellany thought about going into his motion. Ludwick strikes out looking to end the inning. I serve myself a second bowl of menudo.
Bottom First: Piñiero comes out throwing strikes. He gets a 4-3 groundout from McLouth, then makes Freddy Sanchez his first strikeout victim of the season. Jason Bay, who homered last night off Wellemeyer, walks on six pitches. Jo-El’s fastball is sitting in the upper 80′s, topping out at 90. Doumit grounds out to Albert, who handles the sharply hit ball and steps on the bag to end the half inning.
Top Second: Glaus K, Molina G5-3, Miles F9. Ugh. The Southwest Airlines commercial with Amy Anderson blocking the dude from the buttons is pretty funny. Much more entertaining than that half-inning. While looking for that clip, I found out that hot chicks are having trouble flying that airline—the stewardesses tell them to cover up. The irony is overwhelming.
Bottom Second: Piñiero’s cruising along through that 1-2-3 inning, which saw Adam LaRoche strike out swinging. Jo-El’s pitch count is 25 through two innings. Nice efficiency. I argued last year that Piñeiro is a similar pitcher going into this season to Soup when we signed him. It’d be nice if we could get him his first win so casual fans will stop complaining about him.
Top Third: The lone survivor of planet Krypton strikes out swinging at a belt-high fastball to lead off the inning. Brendan Ryan beats out a groundball to the shortstop that’s ruled an error. Good to see him back with the team. He injured himself the day I went down to Spring Training, so I didn’t get to see him do anything but pound out a pocket in his glove with a wooden mallet of some type. Skip grounds into a double play to end the half-inning. Tom’s a good pitcher, glad to see him getting his act together. Not so happy it comes against the Cardinals.
Bottom Third: Brian Bixler picks up the first hit of the game, lining one to Ludwick for a single. Gorzelanny sacrifice bunts him to second. McLouth flies out to Skip Schumaker in center field. Piñiero throws breaking stuff to Freddy Sanchez: low and away, up and in, then a curve over the plate that Sanchez grounds to Ryan, who gobbles it up cleanly and makes a solid throw to Pujols to end the inning. Nice to have you back, Brendan. In case anyone was wondering, Tony La Russa is a Brendan Ryan fan.
Top Fourth: Brian Barton draws a walk to lead off the inning. The best baseball player in the game steps up to the plate. On a 3-1 count, the catcher sets up inside and low. Gorzelanny doesn’t have the nerves to throw it there and walks el Hombre with a pitch away. Ludwick steps up to make ‘em pay. Unfortunately, he flies to deep center field, deep enough for Barton to advance to third. Some may wonder why Ludwick’s playing in left and Barton in right. PNC park has a strangely deep left field, so Tony’s playing his better corner defender in that field. Barton’s got some serious speed that might’ve given him an advantage in that gap. Want to see a left field really out of left field? Check out the Midland Rockhound’s dimensions. Glaus strikes out swinging and Molina flies out to spoil the opportunity we had with two on and no outs. Aggravating.
Bottom Fourth: Piñiero strikes out Bay to start the inning. He’s looking very good tonight. Doumit pops up into no-man’s land between Ludwick, Schumaker, and Brendan Ryan for a single. Xavier Nady hits a slow roller past the pitcher than Ryan fields and throws to first. Doumit was at the bag ahead of the ball so no force or DP was possible. At AAA, Mike Parisi is facing down the Iowa Cubs who have the lefty J.R. Mathes pitching. David Freese has the lone Redbirds hit, a double. Couldn’t be more impressed with that kid, who’s showing a strong bat after making the big leap from A ball to AAA after being acquired from the Padres for Jim Edmonds, who’s not off to a good start. Adam LaRoche drives a ball to the wall to score Doumit from second. Pirates take the lead 1-0 over my beloved Cardinals here in the 4th with two outs. I hold Piñiero to Cardnilly’s Suppan standard: 6+ innings with three runs scored is a good start, it’s up to the bats to score enough runs to win a high percentage of such games. Bautista ends the inning with a flyball to Thudwick.
Top Fifth: Aaron Miles doesn’t get it done, grounding out to lead off the fifth inning. Piñiero, at 59 pitches, watches four straight pitches miss the zone and takes his walk. Brendan Ryan comes up and works a considerably more difficult walk. We’ve got first and second with one out and the top of the order coming up. This’d be a good time to score some runs. Skip comes up, skeptical of Gorzelanny’s ability to locate his pitches and takes the first two for balls. The third pitch in the sequence paints the low-and-away corner. Pitch four is lower and awayer and runs the count to 3-1. Gorzelanny hits the same corner as strike one and Skip fouls it off before walking on the next pitch. That’s the sort of AB I was wondering whether Skip’d be able to take when he was leading off for Memphis the past two years. He’d take a lot of strike 3s with a full count, leading me to question his batter’s eye. Like to see him foul off those borderline pitches. Brian Barton steps up with the bases loaded and one out. El Homb looms large on the on-deck circle. Barton lines it over the infielders’ heads for a single that plates two baserunners and advances Skip from first to third. Albert’s up with second open, one out, and two in. Delightful! Pujols drives a 3-1 pitch throw the hole between short and third to score Schumaker. Ryan Ludwick flies to right-centerfield and Glaus grounds out 6-3 to end the inning. I have the utmost confidence that Glaus will get his bat going and am pleased with his defense. Just in case one gets that grass-is-greener feeling, Sco-Ro (who’s one of my all-time favorite ballplayers) is hitless through three games on his rehab assignment with the A-Advanced Dunedin Blue Jays. Just saying.
Bottom Fifth: Piñiero resumes work on the mound with a nice two-run lead. He induces a grounder on three pitches, then gets the pinch-hitter Chris Gomez to fly out on five, before ending the inning with a three-pitch strikeout. Dude’s efficient even when he’s striking out their leadoff hitter. He’s at 66 pitches through five innings and looks like he could carry this one through 8 innings.
Top Sixth: Molina leads off the inning with a ground-rule double to the left-field corner. This team needs a good, punishing win to get a little swagger going with the (surging?) Astros coming to town this weekend. Aaron Miles grounds out, advancing Molina to third. It’s odd seeing a longman out of the Pirates bullpen who’s not Ryan Vogelsong, who’s been pitching for Hanshin in Japan the past two years. Joel strikes out swinging at a ball in the dirt. Brendan Ryan singles to score Molina from third. Skip comes up and hits a classic Brian Giles-esque gap double to score Ryan. Brian Barton skies a ball to the 383′ mark at the left field wall that finds Jason Bay’s glove. That would’ve been his first MLB home run in most other parks. Inning’s over with the Cards up 5-1.
Bottom Sixth: Holy smokes! Freddy Sanchez scorches a grounder off Piñiero’s calf. The ball pops about twenty feet in the air and fifteen towards the 3B side. Jo-El picks up the ball in the air, gloves it, whirls and throw to first to get Sanchez out. Unreal play. Had to rewind it and watch it a few times. That’s simply exceptional. Jason Bay follows that up with a 3-2 grounder that bounds past Glaus for a single. Doumit comes up and grounds the ball to Aaron Miles, who throws to Ryan covering second to get Bay out. Doumit beats the ball at first by a whisker to keep the inning going. Xavier Nady comes to the plate and grounds into a 6-4 forceout to end the inning. Dan points out that the Pirates are the only team in the major leagues to have grounded into a double play in each game so far this season. That’s gotta hurt. I wouldn’t mind if they end that streak against us if it means they don’t get any more men on base. Piñiero’s at 86 pitches. He’ll have to be extremely efficient in the seventh to make it into the 8th.
Top 7th: Pujols leads off by pounding a rocket to the base of the wall in the right field corner. Nady plays it cleanly and makes a stellar throw to 2nd, beating Pujols to get the first out. Ludwick flies out to Nady for the second out. Glaus lines a single to Nady and Molina doubles to the left field wall. Glaus is held up at third by Oquendo. Aaron Miles is intentionally walked to load the bases for Joel Piñiero with two outs. Joel’s looked pretty lost at the plate in this game, but he looked fine hitting off the pitching machine at spring training. If Dumatrait makes a mistake here, it wouldn’t be inconceivable for Piñiero to make the Pirates pay dearly. Unfortunately, he strikes out looking at a belt-high fastball away. Let’s hope that Glaus run won’t be needed.
Bottom 7th: Extreme efficiency, here we come! Adam LaRoche flies out on a first-pitch fastball. Bautista strikes out looking at two pitches then foul tipping the third into Molina’s glove. Brian Bixler then strikes out on four pitches. Superb 8 pitch inning keeps his pitch count at 94. If he were pulled here, Joel would have a FIGS of 69. If he can finish the 8th, he’ll have tied Wainwright for the longest outing by a Cardinals starter in 2008.
Top 8th: Ryan leads off with a grounder misplayed by the third baseman Bautista. Skip grounds into a double play for the second time in this game. Brian Barton singles through the left side of the infield. Albert Pujols gets drilled in the lower back after Barton very nearly committed a second baserunning gaffe in the game—he was almost picked off third wandering. Ludwick comes up with two outs and runners at first and second. Lud’s the only starter for the Cardinals who’s failed to reach base tonight. Osoria strikes him out swinging to end the half inning.
Bottom 8th: Tony opts not to push Piñiero and brings in the lefty Villone, who I think may be the fourth-best healthy lefthanded pitcher in the organization behind Randy Flores, Ron Flores, and Jaime Garcia. He strikes out the righty Rivas, then runs the count full on the lefty McLouth before inducing a pop-up. That’s only the second lefthander he’s faced where the plate appearance didn’t result in one of the three true outcomes. In 8 PA, he’d walked three and struck out four. The right-hander Freddy Sanchez then grounds out 6-3. I expect Villone will pitch again in the ninth, giving the heavy lifters in the bullpen a badly needed day off.
Top 9th: Troy Glaus leads off: ball outside, swinging strike at a pitch away, then doubles on a sharply hit ground ball down the line and past his counterpart, Jose Bautista. I’d rather play David Freese over Bautista. Freese, by the way, has gone 2-3 so far for Memphis tonight with a double. Yadier Molina singles to advance Glaus to third. Aaron Miles grounds into another double play, scoring Glaus to run the lead to five. Tony makes the questionable decision to pinch-hit Duncan for Ron Villone with two outs and the bases empty. The move gives Chris Duncan an at-bat to keep the rust off and gets Russ Springer some work, his second appearance since returning from the DL.
Bottom 9th: Russ coaxes a fly ball to Ryan Ludwick off Jason Bay’s bat. He falls behind 3-0 against Ryan Doumit, who has Danzig’s “Mother” playing when he comes to bat, before walking him on the fifth pitch. Thinking about Ryan Vogelsong earlier made me recall one of my favorite depth-starter type pitchers, Chris “The Missle” Gissell. I was also prompted by this Future Redbirds post by Azruavatar, celebrated Jack Cassel, who’s his pet pitcher of that ilk. Chris pitched for Seibu the past two years. It turns out that he’s back in the US with the A’s organization. I dug up a nice story about his comeback. He’s on the disabled list for Sacramento, but I can’t find any story about how he’s injured. Xavier Nady singles and advances Doumit to second. The next batter up is Adam LaRoche, who singles on a ground ball to right field. Barton picks up the ball and throws home, well wide. Doumit scores from third on the throw with Springer backing up to allow for a close play at the plate. That was poorly played by Barton. With runners at first and second, up by four, we’ve entered a save situation and Jason Isringhausen comes in to work it. He inherits the two runners and has one out already taken care of by Springer. It’d have been preferable to get Isringhausen a day off as I expect he’ll be needed for the expected sweep of the Astros this weekend. Jose Bautista flies out to Skip Schumaker in deep center field. Doug Mientkeiwicz then grounds out to Pujols, unassisted to end the game. Cards climb to a game and a half back from the Cubs. We’ll be hosting the Astros this weekend, a matchup featuring a showdown on Saturday between aces Adam Wainwright and Roy Oswalt.
The Cubs, meanwhile, will be playing in our nation’s capitol, facing three Nationals lefthanders. The North-siders are batting .299/.386/.443 thus far against left-handed pitching. We’ll need to play well in order to keep pace. Excellent game tonight with effective, efficient pitching and excellent defense overall behind it, Barton’s ninth inning boner excepted. Good to be back on a winning streak.
