St. Louis Cardinals Accomplish Deja Vu

Do not adjust your computer monitor.

Do not think you’ve gone crazy for a second.

The St. Louis Cardinals won for the second day in a row by the same score and in a fashion identical to Friday.

A walk-off sacrifice fly — perhaps the most exciting play in all of baseball — by Matt Carpenter gave the Cardinals a 2-1 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates Saturday at Busch Stadium.

All kidding aside, the Cardinals have delivered two thrilling pitching duals in as many days with identical scores, and the good news Saturday was the Chicago Cubs got hit hard at home in a loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.

This makes the Cardinals 17-6 overall, a full 3 1/2 games ahead of the Cubs with one more game to go before the big series with Chicago begins.

Here are the highlights from Busch:

*On a day when hits were at a premium for the Cardinals, Peter Bourjos had two of the team’s six hits. Bourjos was in center field while Jon Jay anchored right. Jason Heyward was not in the starting lineup but pinch-hit late and got one hit.

*It was a pitchers duel between St. Louis starter John Lackey and Pittsburgh’s Francisco Liriano, and Lackey struck out four and walked three in six innings.

*Carlos Villanueva earned the victory to improve to 3-1 overall.

All in all, it wasn’t a shabby day, but I wish the Cardinals had hit better. That’s a by-product of Liriano, however, and his solid pitching style. It is a testament that St. Louis hung on and eventually got to the Pirate bullpen.

The series concludes at 2:15 p.m. Sunday.