Tonight was a night where the St.Louis Cardinals should be celebrating a victory, the Cards got a great performance tonight from Jaime Garcia (6 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB and 9 K's) Miguel Bautista came in and threw 2 solid innings for shutout baseball. But tonight Colby Rasmus gave, and then he took away. In the top of the 7th inning in a tie game, Colby hammred a solo homer to right center off Giants starter Matt Cain. The home run gave the Cards a 2-1 lead late, and the Cards seemed to be headed for a victory.
Ryan Franklin came into pitch the 9th, with 2 outs, Franklin had runners on first and second with Miguel Tejada at the plate. Franklin and Tejada dueled in what turned out to be a pretty long at bat. Then with a 3-2 count, Tejada hit a fly ball to deep left-center field. Colby Rasmus got under the ball, ready to make the final out to end the game and give the Cards thier 3rd win of the year, as the ball game to him Rasmus got under and caught the ball........only to have it bounce right back out of his glove, out of his hands and into the outfield grass in front of him. The Giants scored the 2 runs they needed easily, stealing a W from the Cardinals. Colby Rasmus went from being the player of the game, to being the reason the Cardinals lost. it was a game the Cardinals really should have won, instead the Cardinals now find themselves 2-6, and will need a win tomorrow to avoid being swept by the defending World Champs.
The Cardinals pitching this year is actually off to a pretty good start. Chris Carpenter has been solid in his first 2 starts, as well as Kyle Loshe, Kyle McClellan in his first start out of the bullpen was pretty decent and even picked up a win in that first start. Jaime Garcia who by the way had a horrible spring training, has given up just 1 run in his first 2 starts and has had great control so far. The reason the Cards keep losing though, is thier inability to score runs. The offense so far this year has flat-out stunk. The Cards are seemingly grounding into Double Plays every time they get a man on. Albert is off to a horrible start, although may I just say I don't think it's because he's distracted by his contract. Albert's had slumps and bad months before and he always rebounds just fine. The rest of the offense however needs to start getting it together and quick. Matt Holliday is expected to come back tomorow and that should help re-energize the offense at least a little. but if the Cards want to contend this year, they are going to have to start scoring some runs for that pitching staff.
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