Swingers

Albert Pujols is money, so f---ing money.


"kill the bunny"

Need a changeup

Well, it's baseballs-to-the-wall time now. Could the 'birds find some karma in the 'stros beards? Page 2's Eric Neel thinks so:

"Now, as for the Astros playoff beards, I'm glad you brought these
up: Is it me, or are these guys actually grooming their playoff beards? Take a
look at Lance Berkman's chin line; it's suspiciously clean, isn't it? If I'm
right, this is very, very bad form. This is George Michael territory. The
baseball gods will punish this behavior. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow,
but soon and for the rest of their lives."

Also check out P-D's Jeff Gordon, doing some google work on homeplate umpire Phil Cuzzi's history of bad umpiring and ridiculous ejections.

Photo hunt

THE GOOD...

THE BAD...

AND THE UGLY...

The pitching myth

One down...

...three to go. So much for the vaunted Astros pitching.

Carpenter pitched eight innings with five hits and a 2.25 ERA. Pettitte goes six innings, eight hits and a 7.50 ERA. That makes Carpenter 5-0 this year against the astros.

By the numbers

SCORING AT HOME

Series starts tomorrow, so it's time to crunch the numbers and get ready... Cardinals v. Astros, according to Google:
Astros

• 173,000 hits for "Houston" and "Syphilis"
• 166,000 hits for "Astros" and "Suck"
• 108,000 hits for "Astros" and "Loser"
• 848 hits for "Roger Clemens" and "Womens clothing"

Cardinals

• 3.27 million hits for "Cardinals" and "World Series"
• 1.7 million hits for "St. Louis" and "Awesome"
• 38,300 hits for "Cardinals" and "God on our side"

Hosing down the infield

Garner on ESPN radio this morning commented on the Astros rotation for what I think is the first time. If the Cards keep their same rotation, the matchups will will be (1) Carpenter v. Pettite, (2) Mulder v. Oswalt and (3) Morris v. Clemens. And according to the P-D, Suppan would have been the Cards' Game 4 starter in the NLDS.

Your schedule goes as follows:

• 7:19 p.m. Wed. at Busch
• 7:19 p.m. Thurs. at Busch
• 3:25 p.m. Sat. in Hou.
• 7:15 p.m. Sun. in Hou.
• 7:20 p.m. Mon. in Hou.
• 3:20 p.m. Oct. 19 at Busch
• 7:20 p.m. Oct. 20 at Busch

ESPN's Phil Rogers breaks it down and says Cardinals in six. SportsNation also favors the 'birds, but you can pile on with your vote here.

Welcome

TWO WORDS: BOO. YAH.

Uncle Reggie knocks in four of his 10 RBIs in the NLDS.

Welcome Cardinal fans. Three reasons this blog will rule:

• It's not afraid to crack open an ice-cold, frosty Budweiser
• Your No. 1 source for a hole in your roof, or a whole new roof...
• You will see no references to "Slamma-lamma-ding-dong," except this one.