Swish's Series Review, Arizona 5/13-5/15

Cardinals' record: 2-1 (Series 2-0-1), 7-3 (season)

Cardinals 2, Diamondbacks 1

Wellemeyer pitched a solid game, just one start after his debacle against the Pirates.  He went 7 innings and scattered 7 hits while only allowing 1 ER.  The bullpen pitched the final two innings and only allowed 2 hits.  Offensively, Pujols and Barden both homered.  Usually, in this case, I'd give the offensive standout nod to Pujols, but Barden's HR was in the 8th inning and proved to be the winning run, so he gets the nod.  Pretty quiet game overall, but a good win for the Redbirds.

Diamonbacks 7, Cardinals 6 (10 innings)

Rough night in the desert.  Carpenter was on the mound for the Cards, at least until he strained his ribcage in the 4th.  Given the injuries that he has had over the past couple of years, this is not good news.  The silver lining is that it's not a shoulder or arm injury, but it is still going to keep him out for a little while.  He was cruising right along until his at bat in the 4th, which is when he strained the muscle.  Then the bullpen came in.

The bullpen was not terrible, but they weren't great either.  With a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the 8th, Kinney allowed a 3 run homer that put the D-backs ahead.  To their credit, the offense tied the game up in the 9th, but Thompson, in his second inning of work, gave up the winning run in the 10th.  Usually extra inning loses don't bother me all that much, but when they had the lead going into the bottom of the 8th, it does bother me a little.  They fought back, but the D-backs had too much momentum in the late innings to lose that game.  Offensive hero for this game is a toss up again.  Pujols tied the game in the 9th, which kept the Cards alive.  Molina was 1-3 with 2 RBI's and a run scored.  We'll call it a tie today.

Cardinals 12, Diamondbacks 7

Big offensive output tonight!  The difficult thing about this victory is choosing somebody who really stood out from the rest.  A few players had good games: Duncan, a homer shy of the cycle, scored twice and knocked in two; Ludwick, 2 hits, including a 2-run HR, scored twice and knocked in three; Molina, 3-3, 2 RBI's and 1 run.  I think it's going to go to Ludwick.  Why?  Because who doesn't love the long ball.

Up next: Cards travel to Wrigley in a big (well, as big as anything this early in the season can be) series against the Cubbies for a 4 game set.  I won't be surprised to see the Cards fall in this opening game simply because Phoenix is a long way from Chicago, and that 1:20 start is going to come early, but we'll see how it goes.  With Wainwright on the mound, the Cards have a good shot.