Series Preview – Pirates @ Cards

The Cardinals enjoyed only their second day off since the All-Star break today, but it’s just one of four off days scheduled in the next eleven days.  We knew the schedule makers were out of their minds when they had the Cards traveling to Detroit for the third consecutive year this season, but this makes me believe that they really do just throw darts at a calendar.

Tomorrow at Busch Stadium, the Cards will play the first of a short, two game series against the Pittsburgh Pirates before taking another day of rest.  Braden Looper (11-9, 4.07 ERA) will face Ian Snell (4-10, 5.91 ERA).  On Wednesday, it’s a battle between Todd Wellemeyer (10-4, 3.79 ERA) and Jason Davis (1-2, 1.80 ERA).

St. Louis needs to start this seven game home stand off with a bang, and I wouldn’t be satisfied without a sweep of the Bucs.  With only 35 regular season games remaining, and the Cardinals trailing the Brewers by 2.5 games in the Wild Card race, playing .500 or slightly better baseball isn’t going to get them playing in October.

Pittsburgh comes to town with an abysmal 56-69 record, while the Redbirds, at 70-57, are only eight wins from matching last year’s total.  The Cards haven’t been as good as expected at home this season, only five games over even, but that needs to change, starting tomorrow.

This is the last visit of the year for Pittsburgh.  Remember the final visit the Pirates made to St. Louis last season?  It was a four game series beginning on September 3rd.  The next night was the debut of the famous rally squirrel, and the Cards won 6-4. Maybe we’ll see him again!

Lastly, a programming note.  I finally got the pictures from the series with the Marlins uploaded.  There’s quite a few horrible shots, but here’s the link anyway, and it’s also now listed in the photos section of the sidebar.

[Image Credit: Cardinals Clubhouse]