The Cardinals missed out on Roy Oswalt and Dan Haren, the two biggest pitchers available this July, but St. Louis is still searching. Jake Westbrook is now their No. 1 priority with less than 24 hours until the trade deadline. The Indians pitcher is one of the best left, but he has an injury history that would make any team balk at a deal.
Westbrook only made five starts in 2008 before a sore right elbow in late May ended his season. The right-hander needed Tommy John surgery and went on to miss the rest of the season and all of [...]

Yesterday at this time, Roy Oswalt appeared destined for Philadelphia to help fix some of the Phillies problems as they hang onto their playoff hopes by a thread. Today, that deal is just about dead because Philly doesn’t want to guarantee Oswalt’s $16 million option for 2012. Oswalt wants that money more than he wants out of Houston. But there are still plenty of interested teams in the Astros ace.
With Philadelphia out, the St. Louis Cardinals are the favorite to land Oswalt, according to Craig Calcaterra of NBC Sports. [...]

The Cardinals bid for the sweep is in danger. St. Louis trails Arizona 4-1 through six-plus innings. The seventh inning stretch gives us a moment to recount the action to this point.
Suppan fails to deliver.
Jeff Suppan will have to get his first win next time after a mediocre start. The righthander lasted 5 2/3 innings and allowed four runs to the D’Backs. Suppan threw 109 pitches, an improvement over his previous starts, but couldn’t finish a complete outing. He was close, but Chris Young’s fifth inning home run put Arizona up 3-1. Later, he walked pitcher Dan Haren who came [...]

St. Louis goes for the sweep today at home against Arizona. The Cards have yet to complete a three-game sweep this season despite plenty of chances. Another chance comes against a scuffling Arizona team set to throw rookie pitcher Barry Enright who will be making his major league debut. Enright will undoubtedly be nervous, so this is a golden opportunity for the Cards to get the elusive sweep of the three-game series. The Snakes are an inexperienced team that finds ways to lose games and with a first-timer on the mound, the prospects for a win are slim.
While failing to [...]

The fire from Monday night’s wild win was still burning Tuesday as the Cardinals torched the Diamondbacks with their offensive firepower for an 8-0 win. The excitement Monday had an element of surprise to it. Tony La Russa was ejected for the first time this season and St. Louis scored three runs thanks to two errors in the ninth to shock Arizona. Tuesday, there was no such surprise. [...]

It’s been a while since I last did a photo gallery to retrace the steps of the game and I would like to get back into that routine of daily coverage on the Cards actual games. Tonight, Albert Pujols was the man driving an easy for St. Louis. Pujols hit a pair of two-run home runs and drove in another run on a gapper to left for a total of five RBI. The king at the plate came up big for the Cards king on the hill who threw 6 1/3 innings of shutout ball. Adam Wainwright struck out seven [...]

Brendan Ryan has had a rough year thus far. The Cards shortstop started the season battling back from a wrist injury and when he did return, he struggled. He struggled with the bat and surprisingly with the glove at times too. He was benched at times for Felipe Lopez after working so hard to earn that shortstop position. He knew he was good. But sometimes, baseball doesn’t give you the chance to show it.
Heading into last night’s contest, he was in the midst of an 0-for-16 slump.
Ryan finally had a memorable night with a big three-run home run in the [...]

After four innings last night, the Cardinals had scored seven runs. Ryan Ludwick hit two home runs. Albert Pujols made one round trip. And Brendan Ryan tripled in two runs. Not bad. The only problem: Kyle Lohse and the bullpen were serving up even more big hits. The Cards seven runs were trumped by Arizona’s eight through four innings. St. Louis went cold the rest of the way and Arizona tacked on another run to finish the game 9-7.
Pitchers usually dream of a night like that. A flurry of early runs puts them at ease and allows them to calmly [...]

The St. Louis Cardinals won their fourth straight series after last night’s thriller under the Arch. The club has won two out of three in each series this year — good for an 8-4 record and 1st place in the NL Central. In baseball, the goal is always to leave a series with a win. So far, the Cards are taking care of business and they look to continue the trend with the three games against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The D’Backs are limping into the series. The team has lost four games in a row and stands at 5-7 on [...]

The Cardinals former ace and 2005 Cy Young Award winner Chris Carpenter enjoyed an offseason that could almost be called “normal”.  Cardinal fans were hoping for a strong return from the pitcher this year, but most were playing the safe bet that his health would keep him from taking the ball every fifth day.
After a very solid month of Grapefruit League play, Carpenter started to sway our opinions. What if he could continue his spring pace in the regular season?  How good would the Cardinal rotation be?
On April 9, against Pittsburgh, Carp threw a one-hit gem through seven innings, striking [...]