Take that cubbies!

The St. Louis Cardinals opened up the weekend series with the Chicago Cubs with a bang. South paw Mark Mulder was on the mound, and pitched a wonderful 8 innings. The final score for the night was 9-3. The game finished in a timely manner, most of the time the cubbies went 1,2,3 or as I was saying last night "sit down and shut up". The game was awesome. So how did we score the runs:
1st inning: Pujols hits a monster two run homerun- earning his 1,000th hit w/ a homerun. This was his 11th homerun of the season, setting a new Cardinals record for homeruns hit by a single player in the month of April. Big Mac only hit 10 homeruns in April the season he slugged 70 homeruns.
2nd inning: Cardinals bust it open with 5 runs. Juan Encarnacion, who is still struggling a bit at the plate, hit a single, followed by catcher Yadier Molina who also singled. The Cubbies Pitcher Jerome Williams then issued consecutive walks to Aaron Miles and Mark Mulder. Aaron Miles loaded the bases, and the walk of Mulder sent Encarnacion home. Then shortstop David Eckstien comes up and hits a blooper into right field and scores Yadier Molina. Bases loaded, no outs. John Rodriguez comes and hits a sacrafice pop fly into left field, Aaron Miles scores. Pujols steps up to the plate and smacks a hard double down the third base line, scoring Mulder and Eckstien. The cubs starting pitcher was removed from the game....what a pity.
4th inning: The cubs only run scoring hit comes off of the three run homerun hit by Cubs Catcher Barrett.
5th inning: Jim Edmonds hits a two run homerun to give the Cardinals their final score of 9-3.
Reliever Braden Looper finished the game. Mark Mulder's record is now 2-0.
Click Here for the official report.
My take on the game: It was awesome seeing the Cardinals pay back the Cubbies for the sweep in Chicago. Hehe. The Cardinals smacked the Cubs down. Sad news for the Cubbies; their star first baseman Derek Lee will be sidelined with a broken wrist, in two places, (ouch) for 2-3 months. Former Cardinals player John Mabry turned Cubs player expects to recieve more playing time b/c of this.
Sidetrip: Mark Mulder, Jason Marquis, Sidney Ponson, and Jeff Suppon will all enter free agency come the end of this season. Mark Mulder seems the only likely candidate we will be able to hold onto. Maybe Jason Marquis, but thats a big IF. Suppon will probally want big bucks, and more than likely will go to another team, it would be nice if he resigned with the Birds on the Bat, but we wish him well in his future endevors as we Cardinals fans do with all of our players who sign with other teams. As for Ponson, I have not seen him perform or gotten a feel for his talent, so I can pass no judgement on him thus far. Mark Mulder has stated that he is willing to listen to the Cardinals; he is a Midwesterner, raised in Chicago and now living in St. Louis- he prefers it here, even tho he did play on the West Coast.