Print it, Miss Candy, the Cardinals are Central Division champs

With the Houston Astros’ loss to the Braves on today, the Cardinals for the 20th time in franchise history will be headed to the postseason.

The Cardinals lost today 5-3 to the Brewers, but they did what they had to do in order to win the division over the hard-charging Astros, a game that I followed on Turner South this afternoon.

The Astros won one of three against the Braves while the Cardinals took two of four from the Brewers, back-to-back wins on Friday and Saturday in dramatic fashion over the Brewers proved to be just enough for the Cardinals to capture their third Central Division championship in a row and the sixth postseason appearance in the last seven years for the Cardinals.

Up next for the Cardinals will be the Padres on Tuesday afternoon, Chris Carpenter will get the start for the Cardinals (he was scratched for today and would have been the starter had the Cardinals lost today for the makeup game against the Giants on Monday afternoon) in Game 1 of the Division Series while the Padres are undecided on who they will have as the starter.

Most likely it will be Jake Peavy or Chris Young, who was lights out in the recent series the Cardinals had with the Padres last week.

But that will be a different story once everything has been settled after Monday.

We’re getting there, Cards fans

In the fourth inning, the Braves are leading the Astros 3 to 0 with two outs and bases empty.

The scenario’s simple for the Cardinals, win today and a third straight Central Division title is ours and the planned make-up for the Cardinals against the Giants would be meaningless.

I actually thought that Chris Carpenter would get the start for today’s game, but instead former Memphis Redbird Anthony Reyes will get the start for the Cardinals in game number 161 for the Cardinals.

Just beileve, kiddo

A few days ago, I was pissed off in this blog about what was about to be one of the biggest collapse in the history of baseball when the Cardinals lost Tuesday’s game against the San Diego Padres in their final game of a three-game set in St. Louis.

Then when the Brewers beat the Cardinals rather soundly, I kept thinking about the threat that my ex said to me when we broke up back in 2005.

“The Cardinals will never win the pennant again.”

And for awhile, I figured that the Curse of the Aquarius Girl was about reappear again as the Cardinals needed to win on Friday night and then Saturday afternoon as well as Sunday afternoon to win the division.

And hope to God that they could get some help from the Braves as they faced Houston yesterday evening.

On Friday morning, I went down through a walking trail in my neighborhood and said a prayer for the Cardinals while I stood on the bridge that is over one of the small streams in my neighborhood.

And the last thing that I said, under my breath, was that if there is a guardian angel or whatever higher forces there may be, hopefully they’ll be on the Cardinals’ side on Friday night.

And in one evening, a game that was seemngly set for disaster and the death knell for the Cardinals’ season, the Cardinals with the help of Mr. Pujols restore faith in the Cardinal Nation.

Of course, before today’s game even started, I said again the same thing about today’s game, in which a Cardinals victory would shrink the magic number down to one and put added pressure on the Astros as they played later tonight.

That whatever guardian angel I might have or whatever higher forces that are working now, let’s hope that person or force is a Cardinals fan this weekend.

Since I had to leave for my normal routine down at Galloway, I couldn’t stay and watch the game.

But in an eerie situation, the screensaver on my computer cycled to the picture of the chocolate cutie, myself, and my two goofball friends from this past season down at Autozone Park.

Of course, I didn’t make much of it as I headed out the door.

I knew what that picture meant for me, the Cardinals’ chances of winning the division title was pretty much shot.

While I was discussing the Tigers-Vols game with a few people who attended the game and talking about the possibilty of having a book published within the next year or so, I told them that I was a Fan Radio broadcaster for the Redbirds and I repeated that quasi-famous home run call while I was eating my cheeseburger.

And apparently magically enough, Scott Spiezio hits a 3-run triple that gave the Cardinals lead in the bottom of the eighth inning.

Right after I said that quasi-famous home run call to the people I was talking to.

With one out to go and the tying run on first, I kept thinking to myself the same doubts and fears that I had this summer.

I know how these things end for me.

You size people up and they throw you on the heap.

You start believing in things and it all goes to shit.

Not this time.

The 27th out of game 160 for the Cardinals restored my faith in this season.

And this team.

Doubts aside, the doubting and fearing that I had on Thursday night and Friday morning was all gone when the Cardinals shrank their magic number to one and possibly the 20th postseason appearance in the history of the team.

When the game was over, there was one thing on my mind.

Wherever or whoever my guardian angel is or are (not sure if it’s correct grammar or not), they’re on the Cardinals’ side.

I guess.

Magic number’s 2, sis

Well, so much for that presumed curse that I wrote about in this morning’s entry about the possibilty of the biggest collapse in the history of the St. Louis Cardinals franchise.

On tonight, the Cardinals seemed to be clicking on all cyclinders as they pummeled the Milwaukee Brewers 10-5 to shrink their magic number down to two games with two to play (possibly three because the Cardinals could be playing a makeup game on Monday because of the rainout on Sept. 17th in St. Louis).

And to make things better for the Cardinal Nation, the Astros lost to the Braves earlier tonight to fall a game and a half back of the Cardinals in the loss column with two to play against the Braves. Should they win those games and the Cardinals win their games on tomorrow and Sunday, it pretty much will give the Cardinals their 20th postseason appearance in franchise and the game against San Francisco might not be needed after.

Tomorrow, Jeff Suppan will get the start for the Cardinals and on Sunday, Chris Carpenter will get the ball for the Cardinals in the regular season finale.

Magic number:3

With the Astros’ loss to the Braves, the Cardinals’ magic number is down to 3 games and could shrink down to 2 with tonight’s possible win over Milwaukee.

Curse of the Aquarius could doom the Cardinals

The rapid descent of the Cardinals brought back the threat that my ex-girlfriend said to me on the night that we broke up after a nasty fight on the phone in the summer of 2005, when the Cardinals were pretty much kicking ass and taking names in the National League Central.

If I broke up with her, the Cardinals would never win the pennant for as long as we were separated or something like that.

Of course at the time, the whole idea of some silly little curse because I was trying to start out as a sportswriter and the girl was calling 40 times a day and I ignored her was nothing more than a load of bullshit to me.

That is, until 24 hours removed from talking to my friend Kasi at the exact moment when Albert Pujols silenced the entire city of Houston with a dramatic homer into the Houston night, the Astros would win their first National League pennant in their history and close out Busch Stadium.

Okay, the Astros had Andy Petittie and Roger Clemens pitching on back-to-back days, so there was no proof that the Astros were inferior to the Cardinals last year.

So there’s no need to say anything about a curse in the Cardinal Nation.

We’ll get it next year, I said to myself as I turned the television off and stared at the ceiling to figure out what went wrong for the Cardinals in the NLCS.

Then the shit hit the fucking fan.

The whole thing of a curse was brought up when I was on the phone with Dr. Chris on August 22nd when the Cardinals were playing the Mets and I angrily said to Dr. Chris that I was not infatuated with the chocolate cutie at the ballpark.

And a split-second later, Carlos Beltran hits a homer to beat the Cardinals in the bottom of the ninth.

A week later, I said again that I was not infatuated with the chocolate cutie and when I returned home from work, my computer was flat-footed toasted.

And to top it all off, the Cardinals lost that very same night to the Florida Marlins.

Okay, there’s no need to panic then because the Cincinnati Reds were playing horrible baseball and this division will be wrapped up by the middle of the month.

Wrong.

On September 15th, I began counting the magic number for the Cardinals to clinch the division on this very same blog and when it seemed like I was going to be writing about a division title for the Cardinals in this blog, the shit once again hit the fan.

The Cardinals went on a very long losing streak that ended one month to the day that I called my final game of the 2006 season down at the corner of South Third and Union.

And eerily while I had my screensaver on in the bottom of the eighth inning the picture of the chocolate cutie and myself appeared on the screensaver right before the God Hitter himself hit a ball that hadn’t even landed yet in St. Louis.

But that didn’t solve anything about my theory of the Cardnals’  recent descent.

Come to find out that both my ex-girlfriend and the chocolate cutie are the same Zodiac sign and the curse that my ex put on the team back in 2005 may or may not have been transferred in some way to the next Aquarius girl that I talk to.

But the thing with the chocolate cutie and myself during the summer, was that it was nothing more than a summer fling.

Not a relationship.

So there’s no need to think of the Curse of the Aquarius.

Or is it?

Magic number?4

The Cardinals at long last brought their magic number down to 4 as they beaat the Padres 4 to 2 a few minutes ago in St. Louis. Mr. Pujols hit homer number 47 to give the Cardinals a win and snap their seven-game losing streak with four more games to play against Milwaukee beginning Thursday night in St. Louis.

In Pittsburgh, it’s still a tie score in the bottom of the 12th inning as Pittsburgh and Houston are tied at 6. Jose Castillo is batting for the Bucs and Nieve is pitching for the Astros at PNC Park.

Should the Bucs win tonight, the Cardinals’ magic number will reduce to three games and should the Astros lose tomorrow and the Cardinals win tomorrow, the magic number will be one going into Friday’s game.

Lawd, you gotta be kidding me

If there was a time when all conception of being a St. Louis Cardinals fan meant something, it would be now.

We Cardinals fans make light of the historic collapse that the Chicago Cubs had in 1969, a scant 15 years before I was even born and the Yankees’ Shakespearean-like fall from grace in that glorious pennant-winning year of 2004 when the Red Sox pulled off the improbable comeback in the American League Championship Series that year.

But you don’t think that after 114 years of baseball, nine World Series championship, 16 National League championships, Hall of Famers like Stan Musial, Lou Brock, Bruce Sutter, Rogers Hornsby, et. al., that one of the most storied franchises in baseball would be prepared to deal with something that Cardinals fans like myself don’t experience.

A choke.

A few weeks after  I started counting the magic number for the Cardinals to clinch the division, I’m now trying to figure out how and what and why this is all happening all of a sudden to the Cardinals.

Of course, I’ve stated in previous posts that since the Izzy Man is on the shelf for the remainder of the season, regardless if the Cardinals make the playoffs or not, the bullpen hasn’t been up to par.

And the middle relief of Randy Flores, Josh Hancock, and Tyler Johnso have in the last three days have taken their share of lumps due in this series against the Padres, who last time I checked, were playing in the only division that the Cardinals have excelled against during the season.

The National League West.

And the Cardinals have one of the best records at home, 46-29 entering Monday’s game against the Padres.

So this was supposed to be set up for the Cardinals to win the division and go into the playoffs with some momentum since they were closing out the season at home against a possible playoff-bound Padres team and a horrible road team in Milwaukee, who lost last night in Chicago to the Cubs in the first game of their series at Wrigley Field.

But it could end up in a Shakespearean-style way in which those words I remembered reciting when I was 10 years old in a performing arts camp.

“Our revels are ended. These are our actors.”

In this case, the actors play baseball.

Lookin’ sharp, Carp

Cardinals are leading the Padres 5-2 in the top of the sixth inning. Adrian Gonzalez just hit a single out to left-field for the Padres’ seventh hit of the night.

In Pittsburgh, the Astros are leading the Pirates, 6-3. Craig Biggio has 3 RBIs on the night and Jason Bay and Jose Bautitsa both homered for the Pirates as well.

Down in Miami, the Reds are leading the Marlins  5-2 in what could be the final games for manager Joe Giraidi of the Marlins.

A Cardinals win would lower, folks, the magic number down to four. If Houston lose to Pittsburgh, the magic number will be at three with two more against San Diego and three against Milwaukee.

So stay tuned, folks.

It’s getting serious

Chocolate curse? Not exactly.

The last girlfriend I had said if I dumped her, she would put a curse on my beloved Cardinals and they would (up to now) never win a pennant unless if I get back with her.

That happened in the summer of 2005 when it seemed like the Cardinals were going to win the World Series and end 23 years of no World Series championship in the Gateway City.

Of course, the end to that was when the Houston Astros clinched their first National League pennant in their franchise’s history and closed out Busch Stadium, a day after Pujols rained on the city of Houston’s party by hitting a home run that probably is in some poor little hick town in east Texas.

And now, almost a day after I refuted the story that there’s no way that my denying of liking a certain girl (who happens to be the same Zodiac sign as my ex) has a say in the fortunes of the Cardinals, the Cardinals lose again, this time in a tragic, Shakespearean comedy way.

And starting to believe that in some way, some curse or something is hampering the Cardinals, who are now sitting 3 and a half games up on the Astros with 7 to play and the magic number, unfortunately, sits at 5 games with 7 to play.

Of course, this was the point of my column this morning when on several occasions, the Cardinals have lost in the bottom of the ninth on walk-off homers (Geoff Jenkins, Carlos Beltran, and Luke Scott) and walk-off hits (Tony Graffanino last week in Milwaukee).

All coming on days when I completely denied the whole thing between me and that chocolate cutie to my therapist.

And seemingly strange, when that does happen, the Cardinals some way lose the games on walk-off homers or hits in the bottom of the ninth.

Case in point, when I got some steamy emails from this girl I been talking to, the tone of the game was starting to turn sour for the Cardinals.

In the seventh inning, second base umpire Angel Hernandez called Craig Biggio safe when it was clearly showed on camera that Biggio got tagged by Belliard right after the girl sent me another steamy email.

The knockout blow to the Cardinals was when after I said to Dr. Chris on the phone that this whole curse thing is a joke and that, as I stated this morning in my blog on Blogger, the reason why this is happening is because the Cardinals have done poorly this year on the road like the NL Wild Card-leading Dodgers, who have won 33 games away from  Chavez Ravine this season.

That’s when Aubrey Huff hits a clutch 3-run homer to put the Astros up 7 to 3 and me to look at that picture of myself, the chocolate cutie, Sharika, and Michelle and evaluate my life as an aspiring sportswriter.

The good news about the Cardinals’ chances is that next Monday, they get to make up a game against the San Francisco Giants in St. Louis that was rained out on last Sunday because of storms in the St. Louis area.

So with that being said, the whole thing about a chocolate curse is nothing but a product of my own imagination.

Although I’ve been told that there’s been some weird happenings in baseball.

Very weird things.