The Nooner #6: Weekend Highlights

The St. Louis Cardinals boast a three-game winning streak heading into their game against the American League Champion Tampa Bay Rays today in Jupiter, Florida. The gem of the weekend was Saturday’s game against the Washington Nationals. The Cardinals won the game 9-2, but the biggest story was Chris Carpenter pitching two innings of no-hit ball, followed by Ryan Franklin pitching three innings and allowing no runs on one hit while striking out five. Sunday, the Cardinals and Florida Marlins played a wild game in stormy weather that ended with St. Louis on top 14-10. Joel Piniero allowed one unearned run on two hits in his two innings of work. The team bashed out 19 hits, and six different Cardinals had at least one RBI. But the real star of the game was outfielder Brian Barton, who went 3-5 with a double, two home runs, and six RBI. For more details and full box scores, check out the St. Louis Cardinals’ home page.

TEASER: Saturday night I attended what will surely become another benchmark for the approach of Opening Day year in and year out. Check back later tonight for details!

Christmas in February

What a week! Spring Training games have begun! But more on that later. Tuesday was the greatest day of 2009 so far, because the season tickets arrived!

 

After telling my girlfriend Sarah, I had to e-mail my buddy Scott The Cub Fan. Scott gets as giddy about baseball as I do. He asked me to describe my feelings of this glorious day, and here was my reply:

I actually didn’t get to open the box. I let Sarah do that since she pays for them. But she told me a few days ago that she got the shipping notification, so I knew it was coming. I was working from home and heard the UPS truck pull up. It was a lot like hearing the ice cream truck approach…you know it’s in the vicinity, but is it on your street or the next one over? I ran down the stairs like a kid who still wonders if Santa came last night, and found the box on the front porch. I actually did a pretty good job of not thinking too much about them all day; it was enough to know that they were here and all was well. But then I started wondering what games we had: How many day games? How many Saturday games? Do we have the Thursday day game on my birthday?

  

Then Sarah came home and all questions were answered. I sat twitching while she opened the box and flipped through the little book. And then she handed it to me. I hugged it like Robert DeNiro hugged the fake Mr. Jinx that Ben Stiller found at the animal shelter in Meet The Parents. Hopefully my expectations for the team this year don’t turn out to be as unrealistic as a cat with a spray painted tail.

Now, on to the game!

The St. Louis Cardinals opened Grapefruit League play yesterday with a 5-5 tie after 10 innings against the Florida Marlins in Jupiter, Florida. Blake Hawksworth started the game for the Cards, going 2 2/3 innings and allowing no runs on three hits. Rick Ankiel was 2 for 3 with 2 RBI, and Colby Rasmus was 2 for 5 with a walk and a run scored. Skip Schumaker went 2 for 4, scored twice, and played an errorless 2B. For more, see the full box score here. Today the Cardinals square off against the Baltimore Orioles in Ft. Lauderdale. Game time is 1:05 EST.

Chris