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.

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.

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.