The Cardinals Keep Making Me Look Stupid, but I'm Okay With This

Every time I start to doubt the Cardinals, they do the unthinkable. First, they go 18-8 during September to make the playoffs (thanks Braves). Then, last night in Game 2 of the Division Series against the Phillies, they fell behind 4-0, going up against Cliff Lee, and they came back to win. Lee wasn't exactly Roy Halladay last night, as he was in out of trouble. He gave up a leadoff triple in the first inning and a leadoff double in the second inning and managed to get out of it unscathed both times.

At that point, it's starting to look like one of those nights and one of those series, too. But then, the Cardinals finally managed to string together some hits in the fourth inning and rallied to score three runs. They nearly tied it that inning, as Jon Jay made the final out at home. But after that, the Cardinals knew they were in the game. Even with Carpenter getting lit up early, they were still in the game. We then were witness to the bizarro baseball world. Carpenter was pitching like the Cardinals bullpen for much of the season and the bullpen started pitching like Carpenter. The combination of Fernando Salas, Octavio Dotel, Mark Rzepczynski (or as several of my friends have come to call him, Scrabble), Mitchell Boggs, Arthur Rhodes, and Jason Motte threw six scoreless innings, allowing just one hit, while striking out six and walking no one. Rhodes struck out Ryan Howard with the tying run at first. The guy should be signing up for AARP, not striking out the guy that hit the ball three miles the day before.  But this shit actually happened.

Now the Cardinals can come home and have a chance to close out the series in four games, without having go to back to Philadelphia. And if the Phillies don't want to throw Halladay on short rest, the Cards could also avoid facing him by closing out the series at home. I'll make this decree just like I've done over the past couple of months and will probably be proven wrong again, but the Cards won't win a Game 5 in Philly against Roy Halladay. That just doesn't make sense. After Lance Berkman's three-run bomb in the first inning of Game 1, that was pretty much all we got. Skip Schumaker got a leadoff single in the second, but after that, Halladay pulled a NASCAR and "shut her down." And while this may seem like my first NASCAR reference since I began this blog close to three years ago, it's really just my first Brian Regan reference. If anything, I'm making fun of NASCAR and how it's not a sport, but just a bunch of red necks turning left. I'm not saying that driving in circles at really high speeds isn't difficult, I'm just saying I don't find it entertaining and a machine shouldn't decide the outcome of something that is actually a sport. There, I said it! End tangent! But yes, Halladay retired 21 consecutive batters after Schumaker's single. He didn't even do that in his first start of the playoffs last year. And that was a no-hitter! So yes, I definitely don't like our chances in that scenario.

Let's just win the next two and not worry about that...

Also, just a word to the Rams' offensive line. Blocking is not optional. It's your job. Maybe, do it? And wide receivers, you should probably receive the ball every once in a while too. I heard an unofficial number today, which was that the Rams had 20 drops in Sunday's game. TWENTY! Bradford's completion percentage could've jumped from 47% to 93%. I don't expect them to catch all of those balls, but even most of them would make Bradford's numbers respectable and he deserves better. I just don't know that he'll get what he deserves this season.

Photo from http://www.batman-superman.com