Cards Promote Four, Magic Number: Two
Victorious last night, the Cardinals notched themselves one game closer to clinching the NL Central title.
Their magic number has dwindled to two, and with a Cardinal victory and Cub loss tonight, the Birds will be the 2009 NL Central champs.
Redbird offense remained torrid last night, plating 11 runs on 15 hits. Mark DeRosa continued his solid hitting in Houston, going 2-5 with two runs scored and two RBIs. DeRosa has been heating up lately and the Cardinals need him to hit down the stretch.
Rookie, Colby Rasmus, launched homer number 16 and nabbed RBI number 51 in a 3-4 effort at the plate. Albert Pujols drove in another run, giving him 129 on the season, tieing him for first with Prince Fielder.
Joel Pineiro got back on track last night with a solid 7-inning performance allowing only one earned run. His outing lowered his season ERA to 3.24, but more importanly won the game. Pineiro now has 15 wins, which gives the Cardinals three pitchers with 15 or more victories (Carpenter and Wainwright). This is the first time it’s been done since Mark Mulder, Chris Carpenter, and Jeff Suppan did it in 2005. Although, it had been done in 2004 as well with Carpenter, Suppan, Jason Marquis, and Matt Morris.
Also, last night was the championship game in Triple-A baseball, between the Durham Bulls and Memphis Redbirds.
The Redbirds lost the game 5-4 on a wild-pitch in the bottom of the 11th-inning. Memphis trailed 4-0 early in the game, but mounted a comeback to tie the game at four until the 11th.
Memphis won the PCL championship in stunning fashion, not looking back as they did so. There’s good and bad with every situation, the good in this instance: The big club promoted four players to the majors for the stretch run.
Matt Pagnozzi, a fresh face to the Big’s looks forward to making an ipmrint on Tony LaRussa and the rest of the Cardinal staff, as he’s the lone player of the four called up to not have any Major League experience. Although, he’s familiar with the club because his father, Tom, played for the Cardinals throughout the 90s.
Josh Kinney, Tyler Greene, and David Freese are the other three to be called up to the show. The Cardinals are looking to clinch which should give these boys even more motivation than they already have to perform.
Kinney, a reliever comes back to bolster an already somewhat solid bullpen, while Freese and Greene solidify infield positions. Freese and Greene both had some time in St. Louis earlier this year, but are back now with the expanded rosters.
The four look to join the Cardinals in Houston tonight against the Astros.
Redbird Report 