I think I have a new favorite Cardinal

After Albert, of course.

During the first week and a half of the season, Chris Duncan has yet to show his performance in 2006 was a fluke.

Yeah, yeah… sample size and all that, but he’s strung together some good at-bats so far this season:

• Last night’s pinch-hit home run was the biggest at-bat of the game and the eventual game-winner;
• His pair of walks Tuesday night included one in the ninth inning to get on for Pujols, who flied out to the base of the wall. A heads-up Duncan then advanced to second on an ill-advised throw to third by Pirates leftfielder Jason Bay, which put him in position to score on Scott Spiezio’s game-tying single in the ninth;
• A walk Sunday against the Astros got him on base for Pujols, who hit his first home run three pitches later;
• Although it ultimately proved fruitless, his ninth-inning walk Saturday against the fantastic Roy Oswalt again gave Pujols a potential run to drive in;
• And the series opener in Houston in which he blasted a homer and two doubles, all against left-handed pitching.

Yes, it’s only eight games. But those eight games have been a continuation of what he’d been doing in 2006. Tony La Russa has put Duncan in a great position to succeed, and Duncan has taken advantage. Batting right in front of Pujols, pitchers obviously don’t want to walk him, but Duncan shows enough discipline to keep pitchers honest and enough power to punish ones who challenge him. He’s even been halfway passable in the outfield so far.

It’s only a matter of time before he gets a Skoal endorsement.

Disjointed

The Cardinals’ $63.5 million ace is having some elbow problems:

Cardinals staff ace Chris Carpenter was placed on the 15-day disabled list Monday after an MRI exam in St. Louis revealed arthritis and a previously undiscovered impingement in his right elbow.

Ouch. That doesn’t bode well for the team’s immediate future. We may be looking at a month’s worth of starts from Carl Showalter doppelganger Randy Keisler.

But what about the long-term prognosis? Curiosity got the better of me, so I asked an expert, which of course means Google. You can learn a lot from our Google overlords. For example:

The elbow is a complex joint consisting of 3 true joints that function as 1 joint.

I did not know that. But what I do know is that the human body is not built to throw a 5-ounce sphere 100 or more times during the course of two to three hours once every five days. The above-referenced article confirms that:

Activity involving forceful elbow extension can cause triceps tendinosis or posterior impingement syndrome. Any activity that causes increased valgus stress on the elbow can cause ulnar nerve injury, posterior impingement syndrome, or olecranon stress fractures. These injuries are common in throwing sports and overhead racquet sports.

Bingo. Posterior impingement syndrome. Which actually sounds vaguely dirty. So what is Carp looking at? Looks like rest and some Aleve:

Rest does not mean cessation of activity, which can lead to deconditioning, but rather modified activity, which does not aggravate the injury. … Medications used include nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and, very rarely, corticosteroids.

The article doesn’t give any sort of concrete timetable for return but says the outlook is good as long as he isn’t rushed back.

Prognosis of most overuse injuries is very good, as long as a thorough rehabilitation program is completed.

Sounds good. Oh, what the hell… I’ll bust out the old sign. It worked well enough last year.

Now that’s what I call a winning streak!

Two in a row counts as a streak, right?

I guess the team was tired of my recent whining about how they aren’t hitting and busted out in a big way Sunday against the Astros.

Slow-starting Scott Rolen, Yadier Molina and Albert Pujols, who started this season worse than any of his previous six, each had a couple of big hits to plate some runs.

And poor Brad Lidge. Dude thought he got Albert to hit into an inning-ending double play in the ninth, only to have Mark Loretta kick an easy grounder to load the bases for Rolen, who became the latest hitter to flush a few more crumbs of his disintegrating psyche down the crapper by stroking a bases-clearing double.

Lidge’s truly is a sickness that is contagious; this is Loretta’s first year on the team, and he also seems to be fearful of The Great Pujols. Perhaps Loretta was spooked by Albert’s ownership of Easter.

Speaking of daddy issues, Monday saw the Cardinals open a set in Pittsburgh, where the team has enjoyed some success, batting a collective .294/.361/.473 in PNC Park since it opened in 2001. Pujols and Rolen probably had this series circled on the clubhouse calendar, as both have destroyed Pirates pitching in PNC Park.

Pujols especially had to be salivating to get to face Ian Snell again. You might recall that the last time El Hombre and Snell squared off, Pujols took Snell deep three times.

While we didn’t see a repeat of that scenario Monday, Pujols did get two more hits off of Snell, including a double to lead off the fourth inning. Rolen, who’s walked three times in four career plate appearances against Snell, then doubled to score Pujols. Even the barely useful Preston Wilson got in on the fun, cracking a pinch-hit double in the eighth to plate two insurance runs.

Nearly lost in all the glee of jacking the ball the past two days were the performances of starting pitchers Kip Wells and Braden Looper.

In seven innings Sunday, Wells walked only one and struck out seven, all swinging. While that says something about the quality of his stuff so far, LBoros urges caution:

the nice thing about wells is that his stuff is so good he can get away with mistakes; the bad thing is that he makes a lot of mistakes. all game long he was missing molina’s target, at times by a mile — yadi would set up inside, and the pitch would be a foot off the outside edge; he’d be low in his crouch and tapping the ground with his glove, and the pitch would sail in nipple-high.

Looper, meanwhile, also went seven innings, striking out only three but allowing only five baserunners and inducing two key double plays during his outing Monday.

Perhaps more importantly, those 14 innings limited the exposure of the bullpen, which is certain to be tested Tuesday as Randy Keisler will start in place of Chris Carpenter, who’s been placed on the disabled list with elbow issues.

Roy hobbles Cardinals’ bats

Well, the Cardinals hitting woes continued Saturday night, but at least it was by the arm of an actual good pitcher.

Roy Oswalt continued his careerlong excellence against the Cardinals by going the distance Saturday, allowing just one run on five hits.

The following numbers sum up Saturday’s game pretty well:

• Cardinals 1-5 hitters: 0 for 18
• Astros 1-5 hitters: 6 for 19, 5 RBI

When all five of your hits come from the 6-7-8 spots in the lineup, you got problems.

Wainwright wows in win

While the national sports media were falling all over themselves after one pitcher’s first start, Cardinal Nation was more concerned with a different hurler’s debut.

For one night at least, Adam Wainwright showed he’s a capable starting pitcher, going seven strong innings in his season debut in Houston. Tony La Russa and Dave Duncan probably couldn’t have been more pleased with the Wagonmaker’s performance, as Wainwright coaxed 14 groundball outs to only three flyball outs.

He also was involved in two key double plays, the first being a 3-6-1 twin killing to end a potential threat in the fifth. The second one probably was what killed the Astros’ momentum going forward.

With runners at the corners and nobody out, Astros manager Phil Garner took a page out of La Russa’s playbook and tried a squeeze with Brad Ausmus, but Ausmus bunted the ball right back to Wainwright, who flipped it to Yadier Molina, who tagged Chris Burke out at home and then pegged Ausmus at first. I’m anxious to visit Erik’s excellent Gas House Graphs blog to see what the win expectancy was before and after that play.

Wainwright even got the offensive party started by doubling deep to center field to plate the Cardinals first run, a shot that in a real ballpark would have been a home run.

We also can’t overlook Chris Duncan’s demolition of portside pitching. After whiffing on a breaking ball low and away during his first at-bat, Daddy’s Boy made Wandy Rodriguez pay for leaving a similar pitch up and over the plate in his second at-bat.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Chris Duncan without him making a bonehead play roughly every game. This time it was on the basepaths, getting nailed at third trying to stretch a double with Albert Pujols on deck. Of course, Al Hrabosky then dusted off that old chestnut about not making the first or last out at third base. Never mind that it was the second out of the inning, and never mind that you probably shouldn’t make any out at third base.

I can’t, however, let the mirth of the season’s first win get in the way of the fact than Duncan and Wainwright had three of the Cardinals’ four hits against Rodriguez. This team still makes every pedestrian lefty look like Sanford F. Koufax.

And I know it’s low-hanging fruit, but Jason Isringhausen appears to be in midseason form. Thank you, I’ll be here all week.

I need to stop leaving town

Last time, the Cardinals nearly got swept by the Royals.

This time? We’re on the verge again, this time by the Mets, a team that by most accounts is the class of the National League.

To add injury to insult, Chris Carpenter’s got a bum elbow. If he misses more than his next start, I might have to break out the old sign again.

Hopefully, Braden Looper can stick it to his old team tonight. I’m not holding my breath. Here’s a question to help put your mind at ease: Who has the dopier look on their face, Looper or John Maine?