The St. Louis Cardinals lost Game 2 of the NLCS 7-1 Monday night, and didn't look very good doing it. Chris Carpenter made it through just four innings before getting the hook, hurting his own cause with a throwing error that eventually led to three unearned runs. Left fielder Matt Holliday made yet another postseason blunder in the outfield -- over-running Marco Scutaro's fourth inning single -- and earned the ire of Giants fans everywhere with his takeout slide of Scutaro in the first.
For blogger Dan Moore at Viva El Birdos, the Cardinals' Game 2 performance Monday night was poor all the way around and hopefully not a harbinger of things to come in St. Louis:
The St. Louis Cardinals played very badly in Game 2 of the NLCS...
[T]hey were outplayed in a way that doesn't even require that the other team play very well. Chris Carpenter was undermined by balls in play and poor defense, but all that mediocrity took because he couldn't find the strike zone; his command, the very skill that makes him Chris Carpenter, wasn't in evidence, and he couldn't continue pretending he had it indefinitely.
Obviously the very skill that makes Ryan Vogelsong Ryan Vogelsong is his hard-won ability to make other teams look terrible for being unable to hit Ryan Vogelsong, and that was in evidence. Teams can't come back from five and six run deficits every game, but Vogelsong was able to make this look like a team that could never do that sort of thing...
The Cardinals were SUCK yesterday. Let's hope they're better in Game 3.
The Cardinals and Giants get an off day Tuesday to travel to St. Louis for Games 3, 4 and 5, which begin Wednesday at 4 p.m. ET. All NLCS games are broadcast on FOX.