re: hating to say "I told you so."

I'd say this is an exception, mainly because that was the most cathartic victory all season. (I'd link to my rev. redbird-mandated Optimistic Post from a while back, but present facilities being as they are that's not so possible.) It's a talented team, as the mantra goes--but yesterday's win even had the, ah, unskilled laborers playing the most important roles of all. Sometimes things just work out like that; here are some things that don't happen when Team is mired in a losing streak:

• The Astros don't slink off with just two runs in a three-XBH sixth inning. Remember the XBH binges during The Streak and The Royals Thing? How the Cardinals would walk batters and then let them score on doubles through the gap or long home runs? Did it look like anyone not wearing red would ever ground into a double play during the White Sox series?


• The Cardinals don't blow a big, late-gained lead. Just kidding. They do that.


• Izzy doesn't get out of the ninth. Here is a guy overmatched; Isringhausen's thrown a ton of pitches over the last two days, and he comes in in the ninth with a runner on base. He allows the one run, blowing the save, but then gets out of the inning when... the completely insignificant runner on first base is picked off!? Molina's always been heralded as a great defensive catcher, but I never heard of a scout rating his mind control tool an 80. What are the odds that the Astros trade out for their backup catcher? That they leave the notoriously flaky, slow-moving Munson on first? That he takes a vesitigial secondary lead? They're slim, extremely slim--unless you're Yadier Molina, in which case everybody has a dangerously long lead.


• Braden Looper doesn't not suck. So it's the bottom of the tenth; the Cardinals, already struck by a sacrifice fly to tie a game they had secured, have squandered a hustling one-out triple from Albert Pujols. The whole scene has seemed inevitable since Chris Carpenter's last exasperated pitch. In comes Braden Looper, the most snakebitten ex-closer to take up residence in the Cardinals bullpen since Heathcliff Slocumb in 2000. He of the 95 mph fastball and the 95.00 WHIP charges out of the bullpen and gets a lineout. Then he proceeds to give up a double, hit a batter, and then walk another one. Still in the middle of the order.
  
  He ponders the situation. Strokes his chin.
  
  It's a large chin, but he finishes the job and, after some careful consideration he continues on his gameplan--throw the ball really hard and sort of at them. Strikes out Preston Wilson and Jason Lane in order. End threat. The bullpen depleted, he walks back out the next inning and throws a fastball that Eric Bruntlett has to swing at to protect his eyes. Eric Munson proves an equally quick out, and up walks Roy Oswalt, pinch hitter by default.


• Roy Oswalt doesn't not-double. And Looper, finally looking like the big, hulking closer the Cardinals signed to a multi-year contract, throws a meatball that Oswalt, yesterday's goat, slashes into the left field corner. Poetic justice! The Cardinals felled, not only by their own poor personnel moves in the offseason, but also by the very pitcher that gave them a brief reprieve. Except he missed the bag. How rare is that? Rare enough that one doesn't even have to think about subdividing it further, into "missed bag plays that actually get called by the umpires." But the... demonstrative behavior of the Astros' first base coach, Jose Cruz, appeared to tip off both first base ump Bob Davidson and tenth-inning goat Juan Encarnacion to Oswalt's baserunning whiff, and the second most unlikely play of the entire game is complete.


• Aaron Miles, etc. Aaron Miles can't hit a 97 mph fastball. He hit a 97 mph fastball. It's safe to say that, two weeks ago, the Cardinals don't recover from the unthinkable happening. And yet, after Brad Lidge managed to retire Albert Pujols, La Russa found an obscure rule in the book that allowed him to designate a surrogate daddy for "Lights Out", and suddenly Aaron Miles was in business.

Sometimes these things happen, sometimes they don't. When you're a good team, rather than a great one, they become inordinately important. Here's to more completely asinine developments in the Cardinals' favor in the second half.