Series Preview: St. Louis Cardinals

Apologies for the lack of posts over the weekend. I have a secret double life as a student at a top 68 law school so I had to prepare for today, the first day of the semester, which basically consisted of finding one friend in each class I am taking and notifying them to start thinking of their book as "our book". My thoughts on the Pirates signings and finances are forthcoming. For now just appreciate that you have this juicy, sparkling Series Preview.

The 67-54 St. Louis Cardinals make their penultimate trip to town this week. The Cardinals are 3.5 games behind Cincinnati in the Central and two games back of Philadelphia for the wild card. St. Louis has to be looking at this three game series with the Pirates as a chance to make up grrrrround on the Rrrrreds and that is something St. Louis likes.

The Cardinals have the league's second best pitching staff and are 1-5 against the Pirates this year. The big guns are the same: Albert Pujols (.316/.411/.592) would have been a legit MVP choice in every year of his career and Matt Holliday (.301/.373/.518) is the prototypical #3 hitter. They've added rookie Jon Jay (.362/.411/.523) who is doing his best Pujols impression. Colby Rasmus (.269/.353/.504) is having a breakout year and the rest of the guys in their lineup would have been mentioned here with numbers after their name if they were hitting well.

St. Louis Cardinals - Monday 7:05, Tuesday 7:05, Wednesday 7:05
Tonight the Cardinals' Kyle Lohse (1-5, 6.79) faces Ross Ohlendorf (1-10, 3.90). You know things are bad when your opponent's pitcher has an ERA three runs higher than your own starter yet Las Vegas still has your team as underdogs in a home game. Another sign is that your record is 41-83. Interesting fact: The Pirates have only been favored in nine games this year. Interesting fact 2: Kyle Lohse's career is over. My pick is the Pirates.

Let's talk about how much I hated Sergei Federov in 1997. The answer is a lot. At the time I was 16 and Anna Kournikova was also 16, which means that she was someone who I pretty reasonably could have been dating if not for goddamn Federov, and I always played as an Eastern Conference team on the Genesis so whenever I made the Stanley Cup Finals invariably it was to face Detroit and motherfucking Federov again as a second line center, and I had the three button controller but the computer didn't have to use a controller, that cheating bastard, so it had use of all the functions of buttons X, Y and Z while I did not, and he didn't even love Anna like I did and besides wasn't it a little creepy anyway, and her tennis was suffering, and she still looks pretty goddamn nice in this Cardinals jersey and if not for Sergei, we would probably be married now and my job would be to be her house husband and I would make the most annoying to cook dishes like Twice Baked Potatoes for her if we were married because she deserves it.

Tomorrow, Adam Wainwright (17-7, 2.06) faces Paul Maholm (7-12, 4.92). No matter what happens I still don't buy that Adam Wainwright can successfully make the transition from relieving to starting. My pick is the Pirates.

Wednesday, Jake Westbrook (7-8, 4.48) faces Jeff Karstens (2-10, 4.98). With the Cardinals Westbrook has 26 strikeouts while walking four in 25 innings. Dave Duncan is a genius because in his Tribe glory days Westbrook would have hurt himself even reading that stat. Karstens is still a threat to pitch a no-hitter every time out so my pick is the Pirates.