Cardinals Blow Out Pirates

After blowing out the Cubs, it appears that the Pirates are back to their usual pattern--winning a squeaker, then playing a game in which they're not remotely competitive. Not only did the Pirates get blown out today, but they got blown out in an ugly way. Paul Maholm faced ten batters and threw about eight trillion pitches in the third, doing himself no favors by walking in a run and issuing two other walks in the inning. 

Of course, the defense didn't do much for him either. In the fourth, Andy LaRoche muffed a grounder; the cameras caught Maholm watching the play in disbelief, then visibly shouting "Come on!" But it got even worse later in the inning when Lastings Milledge looked absolutely mystified by a Ryan Ludwick fly ball. Milledge turned in what seemed like a dozen different directions before missing the ball, and the Cardinals scored two runs in the inning, finishing with a score of 6-0 and driving Maholm out of the game. (Ludwick was, somehow, credited with a triple.) The Pirates then sent in Brian Bass, who basically did what you expect Brian Bass to do, and by the sixth the Cards had eleven runs.

There wasn't much worth watching in the last several innings, except that LaRoche botched yet another grounder with two outs in the ninth, then forced Jeff Clement to leave the bag as he rushed his throw. The Pirates did score in the ninth on an error by Brendan Ryan and a couple of singles.