Falling behind

Rowdy makes a good point as to why the "7 losses by 2 runs or less with the tying run at the plate" stat is meaningless: it's easy to score off other team's Ryan Vogelsongs, which is exactly who we see after we fall behind by an aggregate of 48-18 after 3 innings. Couldn't have said it better myself.

Tonight we get Carp and Ollie, which two years ago would've seemed like a fantastic matchup for us. Of course now, Carpenter owns us and Oliver has happily taken the mantle of "Most Maddening Pirates Pitcher" from Kip Wells (who took it from Kris Benson, who took it from Jason Schmidt). The Cards lineup should be a little more formidable than it was when we saw them last week as Edmonds and Rolen should both be in the starting lineup, something we managed to avoid in the 'Burgh last week. They need a couple wins to make up some ground on the 'Stros in the Central, and I'd think they can probably count on getting them against us. On the bright side, I am curious to see the new Busch on TV tonight. I hear it's quite nice.