The Cardinals continued their dominance of the National League Central this week, going 5-1 on a road trip with a blown save on Sunday, meaning it could've been a 6-0 trip. Last night the Cards got a boost from John Smoltz who was rocky early, giving up three runs in the first two innings, but he stuck with it and shut out the Brewers over the next three innings before turning it over to the bullpen. The Brewers had their chances for a knock out blow, but they couldn't capitalize, just as the Cards couldn't do so with runners in scoring position. When a team goes 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position and can still grind out a win, that's the make of a championship caliber team. Even when they don't play that well, they win.
Today, the Cards played much better as Adam Wainwright was back to his normal self after only going five innings in his last start. He went seven scoreless innings today, while striking out six, and also helped himself by doubling and scoring a run. Albert Pujols has officially entered beast mode, as he jacked two more homers today, including the first of his career against former teammate Jeff Suppan. Over his last 14 games, he's batting .460 with seven home runs, six doubles, 17 RBI, 10 walks, and a 1.000 slugging percentage in 50 at-bats. He now has 47 home runs for the season, just two shy of his career high of 49 and he now has three and a half weeks left to pass that mark. The guy is unbelievable. As for his partner in crime, Matt Holliday, he left the game today after stumbling across first base on a ground out with what the team is calling a bruised knee. He had a minor injury a few weeks ago and it didn't phase him, so even though I cringe every time I see him or Chris Carpenter stumble, I'm not worried about this particular injury.
The Cardinals haven't lost ground to the Cubs now since August 3rd. Every time the Cards lose, so do the Cubs. It's getting ridiculous. We're to a point now where the Cubs could win the rest of their games and they would probably still lose the division. The magic number is down to 12. I predicted last week that it would be down to 11 by today, but if not for that blown save on Sunday, it would be, so I'm still going to call that a win.
In other baseball news, Tim Lincecum got scratched from his start last night. This should help Carpenter's Cy Young campaign a bit because one of the knocks on him has been that he has pitched a lot fewer innings than Lincecum. Wainwright's performance today took him to a league-leading 18 wins while keeping his ERA on the decline. Lincecum is supposed to be able to start in a couple of days, but if not, it's great news for all Cards fans who want to see one of their hurlers win the Cy Young and would rather not face the Giants 1-2 punch of Lincecum and Matt Cain in a short series. My only regret was that I bet on the Giants to win in a four-way parlay bet on Centsports (free betting website) without knowing that Lincecum was out. All of my other picks came through except for the Giants. 15 cents down the drain.
New York baseball fans had an interesting news week. A-Rod copped a feel after going after a foul ball in Toronto. He ran into a female police officer and put his around her rather than just knocking her over completely. It was obviously an accident, but I'm sure the tabloids had a field day with it.
On New York's other team, All-Star third baseman David Wright decided that he would no longer wear Rawlings' special big
helmet. The helmet offers extra protection, which is ideal since he's recovering from a concussion landed him a stint on the DL after being nailed in the head by Cain of the Giants. He said it made him uncomfortable at the plate, but more likely he was uncomfortable with all of the insults being hurled his way. As a result, Mets fans everywhere are going to have a real tough time talking their children into wearing their headgear to school.
Another oddity occurred today in baseball when the Rangers' Scott Feldman earned his 16th victory of the year. This tied him with C.C. Sabathia of the Yankees and Justin Verlander of the Tigers for the league lead. If he can hold on to a share of the lead, he would be the first Ranger pitcher to finish a season with a share of the wins lead since Rick Helling did it with 20 victories in 1998. The reason it would be so incredible is because of that hitters' heaven in Arlington where he makes roughly half of his starts. That said, today's win came on the road and was his 12th of the year away from home. So even with the magic that new pitching coach Mike Maddux has worked this year, there still doesn't appear to be a spell to keep the ball inside the Ballpark in Arlington.
The last bit of baseball news I have isn't really news, it's more humor. On Sunday, Prince Fielder hit a walk-off home run to beat the Giants. Perhaps just as interesting as the around the horn, 5-4-3 triple play (watch it) that the Brewers turned earlier in the game was the celebration of the game-winning homer. It was a choreographed celebration in which Fielder jumped on home plate and "blew up" his teammates. This video is from a fan's point of view but was shot pretty well, including the replay to give you a better close up view of it.
It's kind of bush league or amateur like something that would occur at an ultimate frisbee tournament, but it was funny enough that I don't think it should be offensive to the their opponent. After all, baseball is meant to be entertaining.
Last but not least, the NFL season begins tomorrow night with my Steelers hosting the Titans. The Steelers' main distraction over the summer was the rape allegations against quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, but that looks like it'll slow down just in time for the start of the season. Today he rejected an offer from his accuser, Andrea McNulty, in which she said she would drop her lawsuit if he admitted to raping her, apologizes, and donates $100,000 to a non-profit organization which helps women who are victims of domestic violence. It sounds like she's running low on options and will probably be counter-sued for defamation soon enough. As for tomorrow's game, I'm picking the Steelers (of course), by a score of 23-16. Titans running back Lendale White, who stomped all over the Terrible Towel last year after beating the Steelers recently said how he'd be more than happy to do it again. Giving a team that will already be pumped because they're at home to open the defense of a Super Bowl title even more motivation is probably not a good idea. My guess is the Titans will be the only thing getting stomped tomorrow night. I'll have an NFL preview out in the next couple of days. Go Steelers!
Keywords: Albert Pujols, Alex Rodriguez, Ben Roethlisberger, David Wright, Tim Lincecum
