A Little About Two Victorious Cardinals

Arizona defeated that football team from the nation's capitol, 30-20. Carson Palmer came back from his shoulder nerve thing to throw for 250 yards and 2 TDs. The defense forced 4 turnovers, which is good, because the Cardinals couldn't run the ball effectively at the end of the game to keep the opposition's offense on the sidelines. Andre Ellington had 67 yards on 19 carries, 93 yards on 25 touches overall. I can't say Bruce Arians isn't using Ellington a lot.

The Cardinals shot themselves in the foot frequently, committing 14 penalties, several of which extended the Washington team's drives. It's odd, considering they'd been the least-penalized team in the league prior to that. Hopefully this week was the fluke in that regard. At any rate, the Cowboys beat Seattle, so the Cardinals are once again in sole possession of first in the NFC West. Sure, the Niners could win tonight and go to 4-2, but Arizona already beat them once this year so, tiebreaker!

On the baseball side of things, the Cardinals managed to beat the Dodgers in 4, thanks to L.A.'s complete lack of a bullpen. Have to figure that's why Kershaw was still in there in the 7th when things went wrong, such as it is. I mean, Holliday and Peralta's hits only just missed being caught, and Adams' home run only cleared the fence by a couple of feet. I thought football was the game of inches.

The NLCS has already started, and the Cards lost Game 1 to a lockdown performance from Madison Bumgarner. I'm curious, if the series went 7, would Bochy use him there? Right now, he's scheduled for Game 5, so Game 7 would be on short rest. But I think he's clearly they best guy they've got. Then again, Bochy seems to have a better bullpen overall than Mattingly (not to mention Bochy generally seems smarter at deploying his), so he might be more willing to trust a lesser starter, but keep the quick hook. And the Cardinals' offense is capable of making any pitcher look great on any given night.

Wainwright pitched poorly, again. The elbow is becoming more concerning. Given he had a week between his bad Game 1 NLDS start and his bad Game 1 NLCS start, I don't think rest is going to do the job. At least, not the amount of rest you can get during playoff series. I can hope an offseason will do the trick, but that's not going to help now. So do they keep running him out there, or do they try Wacha or Gonzales? I'm not sure I trust any of them, really, certainly not to win a game where the opposing pitcher is Bumgarner. Gonzales walks too many guys, and Wacha didn't seem to have great stuff or command the last time he pitched. At least with those guys, you aren't risking further injury necessarily (well, maybe with Wacha, given the chronic nature of his shoulder condition). I don't know what the answer is.

In the meantime, I guess the Cardinals will just keep trying to hit homers. They hit 4in Game 2, all solo, but it was enough to help them win and even the series. Matt Carpenter hit his 4th of the postseason, Taveras hit one as a pinch-hitter to tie things up, Adams his his second to give them a lead, and after Rosenthal pitched like garbage again, Kolten Wong saved his bacon with another homer. That's 11 in 6 games, 9 of them by lefthanded hitters. Not sure if that means anything.

I do know the Cardinals are about to face righthanded pitchers the next two games, so maybe Matheny ought to consider benching Grichuk, who has historically not hit well against righties. There's next to no chance he'd start Taveras, but he could always go with Holliday-Bourjos-Jay. For all matheny's talk about winning games, that is the outfield best suited to win games, certainly when facing righthanded pitching, and playing in a park with an expansive outfield. Get the really fucking good centerfielder in centerfield. Odds of this happening are basically nil. Matheny made sure to single out Randal for praise for a couple of good plays he made in Game 2, so I'm pretty sure he's trying to lay groundwork for starting him again. Him and my dad, they both just love Grichuk. Me? I find him a useful player, but I'm pretty sure he's the second coming of Jim Lindeman offensively (while being more useful defensively and on the basepaths). Insert your preferred "promising prospect who flames out because he can't stop flailing at breaking pitches and stuff out of the strike zone". Well, my first goal for the Cardinals in any playoff series is to not get swept, and they have taken that off the table, so we'll see what they can manage from there.