It's been a while since I've written anything. It has certainly been a tough month. The Blues started their season by picking up a couple of huge wins over the Red Wings in Sweden, but now they've began to be plagued with injuries again. They've gone just 2-4-1 since returning to the United States and have lost Barret Jackman, T.J. Oshie, D.J. King, and Alex Steen to injuries. They were already without captain Eric Brewer. The only benefit to Jackman being out is that it's giving Alex Pietrangelo a chance to get some playing time. He recorded his first NHL goal on Saturday against Dallas. Unfortunately, nobody else scored in a 4-1 loss. The team admitted that they became unfocused after Dallas forward Steve Ott laid a cheap shot on Carlo Colaiacovo. That's fine if I'm playing a video game. If one of my guys gets hurt in playstation hockey, I spend the majority of the game afterwards trying to injure the other team, especially the player that got my guy hurt (Oh yeah, I go back in instant replay, find the guy, and place a personal vendetta against him for the rest of the contest).
However, the team can't let two points, especially in a home game, slip away so easily. The game went from 1-0 Dallas to 4-0 in a heartbeat. They have to realize that if a hit is really that dirty (which it was), then the league will take care of it (which it did, handing Ott a two-game suspension). If the play had occurred when the game was already out of reach, I'm fine with the team policing itself. Ott made another dirty play later, sticking his knee out to make contact with B.J. Crombeen's knee. Crombeen got up and immediately pursued Ott, beating the hell out of him. I would've done the same thing and I respect Crombeen for defending himself as well as his teammates. Ott knows that he'll be punished both by the league and the Blues if he makes anymore dirty plays against them this season. That said, the Blues play a team in Carolina tonight that only has two wins this season. The team has been extremely inconsistent this year. All of the lineup changes haven't helped that fact, but if they can play well game in and game out, the lineup won't matter as much.
Sadly, the Blues were the least of the problems for St. Louis sports fans over the last month. Mizzou dropped from 4-0 to 4-3, losing their first three conference games. I didn't expect them to beat Oklahoma State on the road or beat Texas, but they should've handled Nebraska. You can't blow a 12-point lead in the second half at home, especially against a team like Nebraska. The Huskers lost at home to Iowa State last week. Anyone who loses a home game to Iowa State is not a good football team (No offense Mike). I know that Blaine Gabbert got hurt, but the defense should've been able to hold them. With all of the rain that night, neither team could move the football, so stopping a weak offense like Nebraska's should've been a manageable task. I'm starting to wonder if the Tigers will even when two Big 12 games this year. They play a horrible Colorado team this week, but it's at Boulder and that setting has given Mizzou fits over the years. I'll take another look at the Tigers after that game.
The Cardinals were easily the worst part of the month. The offense did about what we expected it to do, which was nothing. It wasn't there in September, so you'd have to be really optimistic to think that it was going to show up again out of the Blue in October. What I did not expect, was Chris Carpenter to get lit up in Game 1 by a relatively weak offense. They have Manny, sure, but other than that Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier are the only big power threats. A guy of Carp's caliber should've been able to limit them to three runs or fewer over six innings. Adam Wainwright is of the same caliber and he allowed just one run over eight innings the following day. That should've been plenty. But again, the anemic offense only managed two runs, meaning that there was no margin for error. And with no margin for error, the Cardinals of course committed a colossal one when Matt Holliday dropped what should've been the final out of the game. Some people say that the ball hit him in the gut, but if you were watching closely, it's pretty clear it hit him in the junk. For a baseball player, priority one should be protecting your junk, priority two should be catching the ball. If Holliday takes care of priority one, priority two should've taken care of itself. Even after the drop though, there were still two outs with just the tying run at 
second base. Ryan Franklin has to be able to get out of that. Is everyone glad that when Franklin showed for a month that he clearly wasn't right, that we decided to save John Smoltz for mop up duty in Game 3? This is Smoltz, a future Hall of Famer with nearly as many saves in one season (55, as Ryan Franklin has in his career (56). Tony La Russa's blind loyalty cost us Game 2, a split in LA, which makes Game 3 a very different scenario coming back to St. Louis for two. I really wouldn't have been sad if La Russa and the Cards parted ways after this year. And now he's bringing in Mark McGwire as a hitting coach? The Cards never finished worse than fifth in the league in team batting average under Hal McRae and led the league in 2008 in team average. One of the offense's biggest problems down the stretch was they were impatient. I'm positive that McRae told them to be more patient, but he can't take pitches for them. I feel bad for McRae. He's being run out of town for a media circus. McGwire better have some answers when he gets here, and I don't mean about the team's hitting.
Everyone expected the Rams to be bad this year. They were bad last year. They were bringing in a brand new regime. But this may be the worst it's been since the team got here. And yes, I remember the mid-90's. I was at the game on Sunday, watching missed tackles, blown coverages, and of course, Marc Bulger hitting Colts defenders perfectly in stride for interceptions. I didn't expect the team to make the playoffs this year, but I expected them to win at least four games. There's still time, of course. But if they can't beat the Lions in Detroit this Sunday, I could see them going winless. They're just that bad. One of the few bright spots was one of the Rams linebackers forcing two turnovers, including running an interception back for a touchdown. You might be wondering how that's possible since the Rams didn't find the endzone on Sunday. It's actually because this Rams linebacker, Will Witherspoon, is now an Eagles linebacker and made these plays on Monday Night Football against the Redskins. They dealt him last week for next to nothing. Did the Rams already get sold, to the owners of the Pittsburgh Pirates, no less? I'm starting to wonder. It's times like this that it's really nice to be a Steelers fan first, and a Rams fan second.
The worst part of this month overall, not just for St. Louis, is the fact that the Yankees are back in the World Series. They'll meet the defending champion Philadelphia Phillies in Game 1 tonight. Cliff Lee will faceoff against C.C. Sabathia in a pair of lefties. Who both won the Cy Young in the last two years. For the Cleveland Indians. The Indians may now be known as the Pirates of the American League.
This World Series could be fantastic. Both teams have postseason experience, potent lineups, and fairly reliable bullpens. I give the Yankees the edge though, because the two biggest bats in the Phillies' lineup, NLCS MVP Ryan Howard and Chase Utley, are both lefthanded and could be shut down by Sabathia and former HGH user Andy Pettitte ($10 bucks says you won't hear that mentioned during this series during the FOX broadcast). Meanwhile, the Yankees have A-Roid (not a typo), Mark Teixeira, and Derek Jeter. I mention Jeter because he hits like it's batting practice during the postseason. I'll never really know why, just that he does. The bullpen edge also has to go to New York. They can bring out Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes, and several others to bridge to Mariano Rivera, who still gets guys out like he has a Superfast ball from Ken Griffey Jr. baseball (N64). The Phillies have Brad "You never know what you're going to get" Lidge to finish off games. He was perfect last year but this year he looks like he's regained his Albert Pujols-syndrome (Just ignore the announcing). I hope I'm wrong, but I'm taking the Yankees in six.
Photo is from the Chicago Sun-Times, but a photographer was not listed.
