Series Preview: Astros

Cardinals (12-10) vs Astros (8-14)

Minute Maid Park : 3 Game Series

And your First place St. Louis Cardinals...It feels so good to say that, lets hope they can keep it up. And to start this road trip they head down to Houston, owners of the 2nd worst record in the league (just in front of Seattle). Unfortunately we also have to now worry about Albert. While he finally is starting to hit, .286 in the last two series, he now has a hamstring problem. We have seen these before, and it is a major reason why many are hesitant to sing him to a long term contract. His body doesnt seem to be aging well, and that elbow could be a ticking time bomb. But the real stories of this series are at 1B for the Astros, not the Cards. Their Former first baseman, Lance Berkman, is having a career revival with us out in left field, while their current is one time Cardinals top prospect Brett Wallace. But anything less than a sweep of the 'Stros would be rather disappointing, seeing as our 3 scheduled starters are posting a combined 1.88 ERA, and the lowest of their 3 starters is just south of 5. With an Offense sitting in the Top 3 of the league, and a Pitching staff in the Top 10, as long as the Red Birds are healthy they look to be the Division favorites that we claimed they were.

Guys to Watch

Lance Berkman LF Cardinals

After over 11 seasons being the staple of the Astros lineup, as part of the killer B's, and routinely punching lazy fly-balls into the Crawford Boxes, Berkman's reign of terror over the Cardinals was finally over. And what better way to celebrate that than bring him to St. Louis to continue terrorizing the rest of the NL Central, and for the first time the Astros themselves. Berkman has said he isnt exactly looking forward to going back to Houston, but personally I cant wait. While it wasnt a nasty split or anything, you have to believe there is some inkling of revenge sitting in the back of his mind, and I am hoping for at least 3 HRs into those Crawford Boxes in this series, just so they can get a taste of their own medicine.

Brett Wallace 1B Astros

At this point is there any debate that we sold High on Wallace? Not that he is a bad player, hitting .324 with a .400 on base a 7 RBI, but we clearly got the most in return for him. As a guy we were still touting as a "third basemen" in our system, due to the non-need at First base, flipping him for Matt Holliday was a great deal. When he was traded 2 more times in the next 7 months, each time was for a minor league OF prospect, although good ones in Gose and Taylor, not on the level of Holliday. So far in his short career Wallace is just killing the Redbirds, Hitting 6-for-13 with an OPS north of 1.000. Lets hope that ends this week, and that being traded 3 times lets him forget about us and not be sticking it to us his whole career.

Pitching Matchups

Game 1 - 7:05 pm on FSN

Jaime Garcia (3-0 : 1.44) vs Bud Norris (1-1 : 4.91)

So can we stop with all the Bud Norris jokes now? Yea it was funny for the first series he faced us, but they got annoying really quick. Because honestly he only really had one great game against us. Yea his first game we only got 1 run (unearned) but he only went 5 innings. The second game was the 8 inning 1 earned run game. But after that we scored 9 runs in the next 2 games on him. He has only had one good outing this year, his only win, and every other start he has surrendered atleast 3 runs in at most 6 innings. Jaime on the other hand is the real deal, and deserves more praise and attention than he is getting. Its clearly too early to be looking at Cy Young candidates, but seeing as we were supposed to have one of the top candidates in Waino its amazing that Garcia has been the one to step in and be the Ace of this team so far. While his past 2 outing he threw alot of pitches and only made it through 5 innings, the outings themselves were very impressive, showing great stuff to get himself out of jams. While he has again been "lucky" as some would call it with unearned runs, he has been impressive every outing.

Game 2 - 7:05 pm on FSN

Kyle Lohse (3-1 : 2.01) vs J.A. Happ (1-3 : 6.94)

Lohse has been the man for this team so far. Being the guy that Dunc knew he could be, and making doubters understand why we gave him the contract that we did. much like Jaime, every outing has been impressive, except the one inning in his first game where he got his only loss. Picking up the slack that Westbrook was leaving behind is a huge reason the Redbirds are in 1st place right now. He still doesnt walk anyone (only 4 total) and has been going deep into games, including his latest complete game shutout. Happ was the other big part they ended up with from the Oswalt deal, and while he started out pretty good with the Astros, going 6-2 including a complete game shut out over the Cards, it also included a 1 inning outing against us which includes 7 earned runs in less than 50 pitches. So we should be expecting something in between the Shut out and the 1 inning blow up, but it might actually be closer to the rough outing if this season is an indicator. He has failed to make it though 5 innings in half his outings, been very hittable, and outside of his lone win, he has given up 17 runs in 3 outings spanning less than 16 innings.

Game 3 - 7:05 pm on FSN

Kyle McClellan (3-0 : 2.16) vs Nelson Figueroa (0-3 8.55)

Writing these pitching matchups, it just amazes me how unbelievable Dave Duncan is. For the first month of the season he has gotten 11 wins out of his starting pitching, with Zero coming from Chris Carpenter. Now I know McClellan's last win wasnt technically as the starter, but come one, we know what really happened. And what happened is he pitched a great 6 innings after a crazy start to the night. Every time he has pitch it has been a quality start, and the only thing that KMac could be doing better is going a bit deeper into games, but as the #5 guy, at least 6 every time is plenty good enough. While Figueroa has been just bad, his best result was going into the 7th and ending up with a No Decision. While giving up over 30 hits, 10 walks, and almost 20 runs his 8.55 era and 2+ WHIP the only thing it has gotten him is on the hot seat, trying to hold onto his rotation spot.