Week 5 And Halfway Thru The NLCS

The Vikings finally found a team they couldn't blow a multiple touchdown halftime lead to, as they curbstomped Arizona 34-10. Yeesh. The Arizona Cardinals aren't even worth paying attention to these days.

As to the baseball Cardinals, they lost to the brewers last night 4-2. It figures the first starter of the Brewers to actually shut the Cardinals down would be Randy Wolf. Actually, no, it doesn't figure at all. Not that Wolf's a bad pitcher, but his track record doesn't exactly stack up to Grienke or Gallardo's. Nice as it might have been for the Cards to take care of business in St. Louis, I can't say I'm surprised. Even if the brewers were under .500 on the road this year, they'd still have a decent chance to win 1 out of 3 in the StL. Besides, the Cardinals haven't done anything the easy way the entire postseason, why start now?

It'd certainly be nice for Garcia to have a good start. The Cardinals have really only gotten one good postseason start, and that was Carpenter's NLDS Game 5 start. Jackson got results in NLDS Game 4, but it was a tightrope, and Garcia did alright in Game until he gave up that home run, but by and large, Cardinals starters are getting hammered early and often. Which will happen to average pitchers, but they should also luck into a good start every once in awhile. If nothing else, the bullpen could probably use some rest. They've done pretty well so far, but best not to push it.

Garcia's had better results at home this year than on the road, but I wonder about fatigue. He's already about 40 innings beyond what he threw last year, and that was a career high. This is uncharted territory for him. Still, I'd rather take my chances with a potentially gassed Jaime Garcia than Jake Westbrook.