All is Wellemeyer

Cardinals Win!  In game two of a three game series against Pittsburgh, Cardinal starter Todd Wellemeyer led the team to a much needed win.

Wellemeyer was excellent, leaving the game after allowing just the second Pirate hit in the eighth.  He officially went seven innings, striking out five.  The bullpen couldn’t keep the runner from coming around to score, so Wellemeyer was charged with a run.  His 108 pitches is a career high.  He’s now 4-1, with a 3.27 ERA, although he was deserving of at least one more win earlier this season.

It was the same old story for the Cardinal offense.  Get a lot of runners on, score a few runs, and leave a ton stranded.  The Cards scored 5 tonight, and left 15 runners on as a team.  The LOB numbers have been alarming, and the scoring seems to stop after four or five.  Out of the 42 games played so far this year, 29 were played in April, and the Cardinals scored more than five runs in 9 of those.  They’ve played 13 games so far this month, but have scored more than five just twice.  Interesting, but I think we’ll have to wait out the rest of the month before we go chalking up the decline to better competition.

One positive note on the offense, however, is that Troy Glaus may be heating up.  He followed his impressive performance last night with a 3 for 5 showing tonight, which included another RBI.  He now has 25 on the season.

Jason Isringhausen made his first appearance in front of the home crowd since being removed from his closer’s duty.  The response was mixed, but the results were not. He pitched a scoreless ninth to end the game.  Here’s the full box score.

The win was just what the Cardinals needed, and now will take a little extra confidence into tomorrow afternoon’s series finale.  Joel Pineiro will face Ian Snell.  Look for the Redbirds to take the series.