Cardinals Preview

I am sure a lot of the focus of this upcoming series will be Ryan Howard vs. Albert Pujols. Any other season, this would be a nice topic of conversation for any Cardinals-Phillies series, but Howard's recent contract gives analysts around the country something more to talk about.

Does he deserve this kind of money?
What kind of money will that make Pujols get?
Is he the second best player in baseball, as his contract might suggest?

If recent history is any indication, the next 4 games could answer these questions in favor of the Big Man. Howard has always enjoyed success against his hometown Cardinals, and Pujols has surprisingly struggled against Phillies pitchers. A quick look at their numbers over the past 3 seasons:

Howard
85 AB / .412 AVG / 6 2B / 11 HR / 33 RBI / 1.399 OPS
Pujols
67 AB / .239 AVG / 2 2B / 5 HR / 12 RBI / .839 OPS

So if we can expect one thing out of this series, it would be that talk of Howard's contract will annoy us even more than it already has. If we can expect two things, though, it would be that Howard will exceed any contractual expectations.

As for actual matchups, it is hard to say that they really favor the Phils. To our credit, though, it would be hard to say that any team would have a favorable matchup against Cardinals starting pitching.

Monday:
Joe Blanton vs. Jaime Garcia - Blanton is making his season debut after an injury kept him out this long. We can't really know what to expect from him right now. If it's anything like what we've gotten from him in the past, I would say 8 innings and 4 runs. That's definitely something I can live with considering our offense in the past 2 games. Jaime Garcia, however, is 2-1 with a 1.04 ERA this season. That may suggest that 10 or 11 runs will not happen for us. Overall, this game is kind of a coin flip I would say depending upon how well Blanton does and whether or not Garcia can continue his random new-found success.

Tuesday:
Cole Hamels vs. Adam Wainwright - Because this is a big matchup, Hamels will most likely step up his game. Against Wainwright, however, it will be tough for the Phils to provide enough run support for him. Wainwright is 4-1 this season with a 2.13 ERA. His one loss came in a game in which he pitched 8 innings and gave up 2 earned runs. The problem for him was, in that same game, Barry Zito pitched 8 innings of shutout ball while striking out 10 for the Giants. I think this will be a great game for pitching, but don't expect much out of either offense. If it comes down to bullpens in the end, I give the advantage to the Cardinals.

Wednesday (ESPN):
Kyle Kendrick vs. Brad Penny - This game is as much of a guaranteed loss as we can get. We all know at this point about Kendrick's struggles. Brad Penny is 3-1 this season with a 1.56 ERA. Are we noticing a trend with this Cardinals starting rotation? Luckily, we miss out on their ace Chris Carpenter, who is better than each of these first 3 pitchers. Pretty impressive.

Thursday (1:05 game):
Roy Halladay vs. Kyle Lohse - First of all, Lohse pronounces his last name "lowshe." Where does he get off? You're either spelling your name wrong or pronouncing it wrong. Plus, you're bringing down the entire starting rotation of the St. Louis Cardinals. Lohse has yet to win a game and has an ERA over 5. Against Roy Halladay, I like the Phillies' odds in this game. A lot.

One final note in this series. We may get to see my favorite matchup in history: Brad Lidge vs. Albert Pujols. Someone seems to bring up every time these two see each other arguably the most entertaining home run in baseball history. Hopefully we'll be lucky enough to see a clip of it during the series, but if not, I'll put the link below. Basically, Pujols hit a home run off of Brad Lidge that left Houston's city limits to send the Cardinals to the World Series. Yikes. Hilarious

http://mlb.mlb.com/media/player/mp_tpl_3_1.jsp?w_id=455632&w=2005/open/topplays/archive10/05nlcs_gm5_slnhou_pujols_3runhr_350.wmv&pid=mlb_tp&gid=2005/10/17/slnmlb-houmlb-1&curl=custom_context/ps/y2005/lcs_b.jsp&cid=mlb&fid=mlb_tp350&v=2