GAME 94: Wandy Rocks, Carlos Rolls...

Astros 11, Cardinals 6

Wandy Rodriguez rocks. I can't stop saying this, since Spring Training this year: This is Wandy's year. Another great start tonight earned him his 10th win: Seven innings, 1 run (solo homer) on 4 hits, no walks, 5 Ks. With a little over 100 pitches, it looked like Coop was going to give him the 8th too -- Wandy led off the bottom of the seventh with a double. But after El Caballo hit a grand slam, and Blum followed with another homer on the next pitch, Houston was leading 10-1 going into the eighth. Seemed like a safe time to give Wandy the rest of the night off.

That judgment came into question, briefly at least, as the Cards scored 5 in the eighth, mostly off of just-up-from-the-farm Chad Paronto. (Paronto, pitching between Wandy and Wright, looked like a giant in the land of the munchkins.) Not a fortuitous start for Paronto (4 ER on 1/3 inning puts his ERA at a whopping 108!) As the Astros' lead was whittled down to 4 runs, visions of yesterday's Twins fiasco (lost after a 10-run lead, on a bad call from the ump no less) were coming to mind...

But no harm done - the Astros put another insurance run on the board in the bottom of the eighth, and Arias pitched a perfect ninth to turn off the lights.

The Astros continued their excellent fielding - special mention goes to Geoff Blum for an acrobatic catch at third. The Cards, on the other hand, were just plain sloppy - their 3 errors were just part of an overall pattern of less-than-stellar fielding. I noticed this yesterday too - I'm not sure if it's typical, or just an oddity in a small sample of games.

With 11 runs, there are lots of players who had fun at the plate tonight. King of the RBIs is Lee, who went 1 for 5 - but that 1 was a grand slam. Pence had a second-inning 2-run homer to give the Astros an early lead that they never relinquished. Tejada continues his surge, going 2 for 3, and knocking in 3 RBIs. Bourn was 2 for 4 with another stolen base.

On the get-well-soon list: Berkman continues to sit out games, with a calf strain that persists. Matsui hit a foul ball into his own knee, and rolled around in pain for a bit. He finished his at bat, but was replaced in the next inning. He's a fragile guy. Last night Brocail pitched a scoreless inning for Round Rock. So far so good, towards a timely comeback.

Tonight's win is Wandy's 10th of the year - tying his previous season best, with more than a third of the season still to go. Wandy Rocks!

Every game we win against the first place Cards advances us a game in the standings. But let's not forget our other competition - most of whom were kind enough to lose tonight. The Cubs lost to the Phillies in 13 innings, and after 4 innings the Reds are losing to the Dodgers 9-1. Milwaukee beat the Pirates, but it was greedy to hope for the Bucs to help us out here.

In other news, Chris Sampson and his wife named their new baby Colt. What are they thinking?

Tomorrow it's Roy O vs Chris Carpenter. Should be a great game. Just hope the Astros saved some fun for the Wiz.