...REARED ITS UGLY HEAD AGAIN: GAME FOUR

The bad news is--the Cardinals are back. Back to the 83-game winners they were this season. Back to the crummy play and questionable pitching match ups that TRL chose last night. Ultimately back to New York where the Cardinals will win or lose this series. This series that they had a fairly good grasp of until Darren Oliver and Oliver Perez threw puzzling pitches from the wrong side and silenced Cardinal bats for the most part.

Things went sour before the first pitch for me. That line up. No Preston Wilson? What did he do to ride the pines? Spiezio in left? Rolen back at third? And hitting ahead of Edmonds? Juan hitting clean up? Those questions were shoved to the back of my mind. Oly Perez was on the hill which meant many walks, I thought. But I forgot about the impatient hitters. Down 11-3 they were still swinging at the first pitch.

I just knew Pujols would hit. (Only close blog readers will notice I haven't referred to him as Mr. Pujols since he slammed Glavine in the press. That was beyond tacky; it was stupid.) But he didn't show up last night either. Let's see: 0 RBIs in this series. I think Beltran has 9. Delgado got 5 last night. Hey, Albert, it's showtime. And Glavine on the mound. Put up or shut the heck up.

Game 5 tonight in rainy St. Lou. Let's hope it's not the final home game of the season. Let's keep that other bird (pictured) out.