Cardinals v. Rockies (3 Games)

Three games in the books, and the Cards are 2-1! With that we can project our season record to be 108-54! YES! Hot digity damn!

Ok, maybe we’re jumping ahead of ourselves here, but there are a lot of good things that happened over this opening series, and although it’s too early to be jumping up and down and planning your budget around buying World Series tickets, there are positive signs from these first three games to be cautiously optimistic about (but I'll understand if you want to do a little jig at least... go ahead... no one's watching).

SERIES RECAP
Game 1- A Great Start Gets Drowned Out
Adam Wainwright looked pretty good on opening day against the mighty defending NL Champs. He wasn’t dominant, but showed decent stuff, and he got better as the game wore on. Too bad it wasn’t meant to be. With the Cards leading 5-1 in the third inning, the game was postponed due to rain. Because the game was called before the 4.5 inning mark, none of the stats can be counted, and the game will have to be replayed. Not only does Wainwright lose what could have been his first win of the season, but Albert Pujols was robbed of his first home run bomb of the year. Likewise, Rick Ankiel and Yadier Molina lost their 2-run hits, and Skip Schumaker won’t get credit for an incredible diving catch in left field. Oh well. Opening day would have to wait one more day as Cardinals exile Kip Wells was penciled in to face Kyle Lohse who was bumped up on short notice.

Game 1 Redux- This game did not go as well as the original opener. Wells came in to his old ballpark and allowed one run in 51/3 innings against his former team. Molina accounted for the Cards only run with a homer in the fifth that chased Wells. But the Cards were unable to put across any more and squandered Kyle Lohse’s Cards debut. Lohse, a late spring addition to the team, coming off a one day notice and not expecting to pitch until Saturday, came in and pitched 5 scoreless innings before Molina’s dinger aloud LaRussa to get him out of the game. McClellan and Springer came in a pitched shut out ball until the eighth when it was Ryan Franklin’s turn. Franklin gave up two hits, a walk and a run before Randy Flores was called in to bail him out. Flores, having inherited loaded bases from Franklin, was able to strike out the first two batters he faced but gave up a walk to allow the second and deciding run to score. Rockies 2 Cards 1.

Game 2- Todd Wellemeyer showed why he was chosen for a starting rotation spot as he pitched 5 innings and gave up only one run on a homer from Colorado’s Brad Hawpe in the Cards first win of the season. He gave up only four hits, walked three and struckout six. Rockies pitcher Aaron Cook, on the other hand, gave up four runs, one home run, three walks, and three strikeouts in six innings. The only other runs allowed by the Cards’ pitchers were by McClellan and Franklin who each gave up one run. Rick Ankiel got his first homer of the season as Ryan Ludwig added a double and a triple while gaining 3 RBIs. Adam Kennedy, Rick Ankiel, Troy Glaus, and Albert Pujols each added one RBI. While career minor leaguer Rico Washington got his first major league hit and RBI on a double. Cards 8 Rockies 3.

Game 3- Brad Thompson pitched 62/3 innings of shutout ball to get the win for the Cards. Villone, Reyes, and Isringhausen continued the shutout the rest of the way. Surprising in all of this, much maligned pitcher Anthony Reyes faced the heart of the Rockies order and retired all three on consecutive strikeouts. Thompson even helped himself by scoring his first ever major league RBI while Pujols and Glaus added the others. Cards 3 Rockies 0.

THOUGHTS
So with a home stand in the opening series of the season things are suddenly not looking so bad. It’s hard to extrapolate what these first three games mean over a 162 game season, but it appears that maybe these Cards won’t be so bad after all… we hope. Pujols is as advertised, Glaus and Ankiel have contributed (although Glaus hasn’t really started hitting yet.. his average is a paltry .182 thus far), and the shaky starting rotation survived it’s first test against the best team in the NL last year. I highly doubt that we can expect such performances from this pitching staff day in and day out, but there’s really no telling what they might do. Duncan is out for a little while with a tweaked hammy, but he doesn’t play against lefty starting pitching much, which is what the Cards will be facing in at least the next two games, so it’s not a loss. It’s good to see Rico Washington living the dream by getting his first career hit and RBI in the majors after toiling for so long in the minors. Enjoy is while you can Rico.

Note: Rico reminds me of a guy who played for my hometown Indianapolis Indians; Razor Shines. Shines played for the Indians from 1984 to 1993, but had limited success (if any) at the major league level. In four Big League seasons for Montreal he played in 68 games, had 81 at bats, 15 hits, one double, five RBIs, one stolen base, five walks, a .185 batting average, .239 on-base percentage, .198 slugging percentage, 16 total bases and one sacrifice fly. He even pitched an inning in a blow-out loss vs. St. Louis in 1985. This information is according to Baseball-Reference.com. I will say this, however, he is beloved by the city of Indianapolis, and I still covet my autographed baseball card of him. Thanks Razor. So in honor of him from now on we're calling Rico Washington... Rico Shines or Razor Washington... I haven't really decided yet. Maybe even Razor Rico. What do you think?

Anyway,
Schumaker has not collected his first hit of the season yet, which is a little alarming considering he’s our lead off man, and Cesar played decently although he is currently hitless and has already made his first error of the season. We’ll have a better idea of this team’s capability as April wears on, but hey, I can’t complain about the start. You want to win every series, and right now we’re 1-0 in series play. Let’s see how this coming home stand against Washington goes and we’ll have more to digest. But for now, a nice start, especially when you consider that the Cards could have conceivably been 3-0 right now. We’ll take it.

159 more games to go.

Next up: The Washington Nationals at home.