St. Louis Cardinals Push Reds Back Into First
By
Zeldink
Posted at 10:25 pm
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cardinals (56-46) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 |
| Mets (52-50) | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - | 4 | 7 | 0 |
Going into Thursday, the Cincinnati Reds were tied with the St. Louis Cardinals for first place of the National League Central. Thanks to the New York Mets and a great outing by knuckle-baller R.A. Dickey, the Reds are back in first.
A day after their extra-inning affair, the Cardinals’ offense played tired. They managed 4 hits and no runs. Albert Pujols played, despite being gimpy, and contributed nothing in what is shaping up to be the worst year of his career. (Of course, the vast majority of players would kill to have a year as “crappy” as Pujols is having. It’s nice having Joey Votto on the Reds.)
Blake Hawksworth wasn’t very good again in his start for St. Louis, getting his 7th loss. Over 6 innings, he allowed 4 runs on 7 hits, 3 walks, and 3 strikeouts.
After storming out of the break with a 7-game winning streak, the Cardinals have now lost 2 series in a row.
I saw this game on cable, and the interesting thing is that Dickey didn’t even have his best knuckleball. I know what his best knuckleball looks like, because Dickey was a member of my hometown Buffalo Bisons, the Mets’ Class AAA farm club, when the season started. His isn’t a traditional knuckler. he throws it a lot harder than most knuckleball pitchers and it acts more like a screwball or a splitter than, say, the version of the pitch you see Tim Wakefield throw.
Be that as it may, Dickey pitched one of the best games of his career. Three of the first four guys in the Cardinal lineup – Pujols, Holliday, and former Red Felipe Lopez – all took the 0-for-4 collar. Nice to yet another former Bison doing well in the majors – especially against one of the Reds’ division foes. Bravo!
JK