Baseball is great, because you never know what you'll see

Today's game with the Nationals qualifies for a Twilight Zone episode. Seriously.

Let's take a quick look at the hilarity that occurred at Nationals Park.

- Rasmus advances two bases thanks to two wild pitches by Daniel Cabrera. AP then hits a 2-R home run.
- Cabrera threw 4 wild pitches total and was hit by a pitch in the fifth.
- AP stole another base. When will teams figure out he's actually becoming a threat to steal and you have to pay attention to him?
- Cardinals went down in order only once (fifth inning).
- Cardinals were issued 11 free passes to first, yet needed five in the ninth to win.

Speaking of the ninth, that's a crazy inning on its own. The AP ground out, Duncan walk, and Ankiel double are pretty pedestrian. But then - a walk, a hit batsman, an infield single/error combination for two runs, a BALK for another run, a stolen base/sac fly combo, another infield single, and finally a fly out.

The Cardinals scored 4 runs without getting a safe hit out of the infield. Only the fourth run scored benefit of a hit to the outfield - and that was a sacrifice fly.

Tim Kurkjian is often quoted saying, "The great thing about baseball is, on any given night you may see something you've never seen before." I certainly think that ninth inning qualifies.

Wellemeyer vs Zimmerman tomorrow. This may be Washington's best chance to get a game in this series. Zimmerman has been very good so far in this his rookie season (2-0, 2.38); Wellemeyer gets hit more often than a pinata at a kids party.

Funny side note: cbssports.com posts a power rankings column (like a lot of sports sites do) weekly. Last week's rankings included this gem of a line:

"The Joakim Soria injury looms as a killer, in that it could force the Royals to use Kyle Farnsworth in situations where the team isn't leading or trailing by at least seven runs. ...... I'd venture a guess that Farnsworth has better stats in such low-leverage situations than Mariano Rivera, Sandy Koufax and Christy Mathewson."

Having been burned two years ago by Farnsworth on my fantasy team (I drafted him because he was projected to be the set up guy for Rivera; turned out the fastball out of his hand is merely the first step in the majestic parabola of flight to the seats beyond all outfielders reach), that comment made me laugh out loud. Thought you might enjoy it too.

Ankiel shaves mustache, drives in two

There's a commenter over at "Kissing Suzy Kolber" named "The Future Mrs. Rick Ankiel". She may be the only person upset at the loss of the porno mustache. Or maybe not; only she knows.

As for me, I couldn't care less, as long as it doesn't get large enough to distract him from playing defense or swinging the bat.

Rick has stuggled with the bat so far this season, but over the last 5 games is starting to show signs of snapping out of it. He's hit 2 HR in that span. Last night gave the latest evidence in his resurgence, two two-out RBI singles, which powered the Cardinals to a 3-2 win over Atlanta.

The three runs was all Joel Piniero would need. Piniero, continuing his surprisingly good start, went 6 and 2/3 allowing only one run. His record now stands at 4-0, tying his 2001 start for his best start ever to a season. And as has been mentioned here before, the Cardinals really need him right now given the state of their rotation.

With the Dodgers losing to San Francisco, the Cardinals now sport the best record in baseball at 14-6. Who would've thunk it?

I'm in class again (there's a shock), and our first test is Thursday, so the next few posts may be bereft of substance; please bear with us.

Kyle Lohse's knee against Jo-Jo Reyes tonight. Reyes is 0-1 with a 7.94 ERA this season. In his career he's 3-6 at the TED, 3-9 in the first half of the season, 4-9 in night games, and 0-2 against St Louis.

Oh, yeah - he's also left handed. So you know you can throw all those statistics out the window.