Oucheewawa.
At least that's what they're saying in St. Louis.
By the grace of the Double Play Gods (Cards had 3!), the Cubs kept the Cards from scoring but one run through a game that saw Ryan Dempster get all charity-like with 6 walks.
The only run the Cards got was on a squeeze with Chris Carpenter at bat and Skip Schumacher at 3rd.
Carpenter, who is always good, shut the Cubs out for his 7, but then the Cardinal bullpen had to come in, and those guys have been gagging a bit lately.
8th inning.
Kyle McClellan gives up a triple to Darwin Barney and then Tony LaRussa decides to walk Carlos Pena to get to Alfonso Soriano who has some kind of good history vs McClellan but hadn't hit a homer in a month or so.
So I guess he was due.
Cubs go up 3-1 when Alfonso's ball goes out, and they get another in the 9th when Castro singles to center and Tony Campana, who'd just stolen 2nd, scored so fast I thought he was gonna run through the backstop.
Cubs 4 Cardinals 1, and as the headlines all said today, "Cubs deal Cards' playoff hopes a Major Blow".
Cleverly, I stole that!
Ha!
Anyway, compellingfunawesome baseball to watch last night and hope it continues today so the headlines tomorrow say something like, "Cards down to last gasp, General Panic in St. Louis".
(Hmmm...what would I draw then?)
But lastly and most importantly in today's post, awesome "Transplant Texan" Stacey Manela swooped in with a bid of $600 (SIX FREAKING HUNDRED) dollars to claim the Tim Souers original pastel of Wrigley Field, and those six hundred bucks will be donated to WriteGirl through Colleen Wainwright's fabulous "50 for 50" drive to help young girls in the WriteGirl program.
Stacey, I am humbled by your generosity, and admire your taste in fine art.
Thanks to EVERYBODY who participated!!!
