About that sweep of the Reds … maybe next week.

But winning the series is preferable, which the St. Louis Cardinals have now done five straight times. Plus a 5-2 home stand to start The 17 Biggest Cardinals Games in the History of the World is obviously very good.

Last night, though, and losing 10-0 to the Cincinnati Reds? Yikes!

That was the very accurate subject line of an email from my uncle Jim last night, who was late turning on the game and found the Reds leading 6-0 in the first inning and then 9-0 in the second.

Safe to say it was not Adam Wainwright’s night.

Whether you want to say it’s because of Wainwright’s 128 pitches his last time out or because Yadier Molina was (gasp!) given a game off so Rob Johnson was catching instead or he was breathing out of the wrong eyelid (hey, Bull Durham references always fit) on a hot night, maybe it was just a plain and simple bad game. That’s what Wainwright said anyway:

“All you can say is they came out ready to play,” Wainwright said. “I was focused, had a good plan, just didn’t execute some pitches. The pitches I did execute, they found a hole. It was just a really bad night, a perfect storm.”

One plus from that perfect storm was Wainwright’s early exit meant Michael Wacha’s entrance in relief. And that was something good to see. Four scoreless innings, 45 of 65 pitches for strikes, a (relatively short) career-high seven strikeouts. A nice silver lining.

Michael Blazek’s successful return with 1 2/3 scoreless innings also was good to see. Fernando Salas? Unfortunately not so much as he gave up a home run to the first batter he faced.

But Pete Kozma played left field! So he still didn’t get any hits. He played left!

Yes, always good to focus on the positives in a bad game. Especially when the Cardinals offense only managed five hits total.

The Cards have the day off today, then tomorrow start The Biggest Road Trip In The History Of The World! as they’re off to Pittsburgh for three against the Pirates, then to Cincinnati for four against the Reds. Last night’s Cards loss and Pirates win means just a half game separates the two teams at the moment — and the Pirates play tonight.

Meaningful, dramatic baseball with just 29 regular season games left — what more could we really want? Besides no more 10-0 losses, that is …


Christine Coleman is the lead writer for Aaron Miles’ Fastball. Follow her on Twitter, @CColeman802, or email aaronmilesfastball@gmail.com. Also follow @AMilesFastball for the latest updates.