Sigh

Is it just me, or are the Cardinals really 17-6? I just keep double taking every time I look at that 12-11 record sitting right beside a +30 run differential, a run differential that just so happens to the best in all of baseball. I felt throughout Tuesday night's 6-5 loss to the Lastros that the game was really firmly in hand. Yeah, I know the game was consistently close, but I just wasn't scared. I was going nuts after Lance Berkman's slap double drove in Matt Holliday because I honestly thought that run was all the Cards were going to need. After all, Mitch Boggs has pretty much been lights out all season. Turns out, he wasn't even that bad Tuesday night. This was no Franklin implosion wrought with jet plane home runs and laser tag line drives. This was, in fact, completely ridiculous. I feel no need to go on any longer about this game in paragraph form. I would likely to simply state that TLR needn't insta-pull Boggs from this role; with any luck he would've recorded save number four or at least pushed the game to extra innings.

Let us recount the bottom of the ninth inning of this awful baseball game I keep blathering on about.

-Brian Bogusevic, who had never played baseball until this particular game, accidentally hits a line drive into right field for a base hit.
-Yadier Molina slips into a narcolepsy fit and a ball skips off into the distance. That Boguasbvnlbi vadsl guy heads on down to second base.
-Michael Bourn bunts as usual. Mitchell Boggs plays hot potato and everyone gets to be on base.
-Mitchell Boggs throws a pitch eight feet and Molina has no idea what to do. That one guy scores, while Michael Bourn forgets he is allowed to run to second base. The game is tied without anyone having done anything at all.
-Angel Sanchez reaches out and burps a bloop single in front of Lance Berkman. Michael Bourn holds up at second. Despite having already made several outs, none are showing up on the scoreboard.
-Hunter Pence, owner of a fancy pants name, follows Angel Sanchez's lead and peeps a ball to the opposite field. The bases are loaded, no one is out, and no one is sure why any of this has happened. The Astro fans are excited despite the positively dreadful fact that they are Astro fans.
-Mitchell Boggs induces a pop-up out of the dead-phase bat of big, fat Carlos Lee. One down and I'm actually optimistic there will be free baseball.
-Mitchell Boggs dominates Bill Hall and forces him to hit into what would have been a double play if a shortstop was playing shortstop. Astros 6, Cardinals 5.

For me, these are among the most frustrating losses. The Astros accumulated the two runs they needed to win on the wings of four weak singles, a passed ball and a wild pitch. It's hard to place blame anywhere when Lady Luck was clearly wearing a green hat with a broken star on it. I'm optimistic the Cardinals will turn this dubious trend around, but it's getting old watching them drop games to bad teams in ugly ways. But hey, there's always tomorrow.