Game 139: Cardinals 16 Pirates 4

I only saw a bit of the game this afternoon. I tuned in in the first inning with Steven Pearce at the plate and the bases loaded with two outs. I was mildly intrigued and somewhat excited. After taking a ball, Mike Maroth threw what appeared to be a hanging super-slow ball. Pearce took a huge cut and missed. Maroth, knowing a good deal when he saw one, followed that right up with a hanging super-slower ball. Pearce took a huger cut and missed. Maroth may be bad, but he's not stupid. He followed up with what appeared to be a hanging super-duper-slow ball. Pearce watched it into the catcher's glove. To say that I was disheartened by that sequence of events would be to say that the Hindenburg was a minor, fire related aviation mishap.

On an unrelated note, a spider that could kick David Eckstein's ass just wandered across the floor of my apartment before meeting Mr. Nike. I don't usually mind spiders and this thing freaked me out. Living alone is fun sometimes.

Anyways, I didn't see much of Bullington. I saw he was hitting 89 on the gun in the first inning, but he still managed to give up two runs in the inning even after Freddy tried to bail him out after an awesome double play. From his line, calling him "hittable" would be an understatement. I didn't really expect more from him, so I'm not terribly upset about this. I do wish people would stop referring to this game as his "major league debut" though. He got an appearance in back in '05 before his arm exploded. This was his first start.

As for the other side of things, Rick Ankiel is probably the only Cardinal I will ever root for ever. Seriously, how cool is the Ankiel story?

UPDATE: Never mind. Go f&$% yourself, Rick Ankiel.