After eight innings of excruciating and painfully boring baseball, the ice cold bats of the Cardinals roared in the ninth to pull off one of the biggest comebacks and best wins of the season. The Cardinals(47-43)  gained a spot in the standings now only 3.5 games out of Cincinnati for first place and now just .5 games back behind the Pirates for second place.  Here is a quick recap of a pretty awful game, that ended up going the Cardinals way:

Lynnsational:

Lance Lynn showed why he was an All Star with a bounce back and much needed superb start. He went seven strong innings striking out ten and allowing just one run on a mistake pitch to Corey Hart that left the yard in an instant. Lynn is still a strong pitcher and one of the biggest surprises of the season so far, if he keeps pitching well the Cardinals might be able to avoid trading for a starter and focus on just helping out the bullpen.

Hart Broken: 

Is there anything Corey Hart cannot do against the Cardinals? It seems like he has been the biggest Cardinal killer since Lance Berkman himself over the past few seasons. He did it again for Milwaukee striking a huge blow, a long homer to center field off of the very strong Lance Lynn to put the Brewers on the board.  This guy is one man the Cardinals should not mess with, it seems like he wins the battles more often than not, though it was nice to see Motte strike him out in the ninth.

Missed chances:

The Cardinals went a ridiculous 0-17 with runners on base going into the ninth inning. How the HELL does that happen? If the Cardinals are going to make a run at the post season the great offense needs to turn back the clock to the beginning of the season and start hitting again, and with runners on base. No team will win games with that many stranded runners and blown chances from the offensive stand point.

HE is clutch:

When Matt Holliday came in to the game with the bases loaded and two outs, I don’t know if there was a single soul that thought the Cardinals could win this game. Holliday has basically been one of the least clutch hitters on the team, and his 1-7 line against John Axford was not too promising. However Holliday proved all of the doubters wrong with a HUGE two run single that tied the game and gave the Cardinals hope again.

The Craigken:

Who doesn’t love Allen Craig? He came up to bat after the big Holliday hit, and I think everyone knew he would come through. He did indeed with a little floater that drove in the game winning run. If Craig was completely healthy for a full season imagine the kind of numbers that he would put up. He is an agents dream, that is of course when he is healthy.

Hot Motte:

Jason Motte looked horrid in the eighth inning quickly giving up a run that was tacked to the rookie Barret Browning. However when he came into the ninth, you just knew that he wanted it. He quickly struck out two batters including the red hot Corey Hart, and then got a ground out to win the game and get the victory. Motte hit 99 on the radar two or three times tonight, it is nice to see that kind of velocity from Motte again.

Player of the Game:

Lance Lynn for his solid start, without it the Cardinals would have had to score a lot more runs.

Conclusion:

This team is still recovering from injuries and from slumps. There is still a lot of work to do from this team but this is still a winnable division, and I still believe this team is Championship caliber. Let us see where the next few weeks go, with the trade deadline looming and with prospects blooming this team could easily win the division and make it to the post season again.