San Diego Padres: Cameron Maybin Steals Spotlight from Albert Pujols

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San Diego Padres Get Big Game From Cameron Maybin

The crowd was a sea of red. The cheers were raucous. These St. Louis fans are not dumb. They understood that Thursday very well could be the last Opening Day for Albert Pujols in a Cardinals uniform.

A man that was made for such festivities had his worst game of his career. He went 0 for 5. What's worse, he killed his team by grounding out into a career-high three double plays.

I am sorry St. Louis. Today was not how you planned. Instead, the heroics would come from the other dugout. The day would belong to Cameron Maybin and the San Diego Padres.

It is not easy to steal the show from the Cardinals at home. It is extremely difficult to keep pace with Chris Carpenter on the bump. It is near impossible to silence that bat of big bad Albert Pujols.

The Padres did all three Thursday afternoon.

Cameron Maybin put a damper on the day when he tied the game with two-outs in the ninth. Maybin's solo shot would send the game to extra innings. He then killed the whole day altogether for Cards fans when he singled home the go ahead runs in the eleventh.

The Cardinals couldn't answer in the bottom of the eleventh. San Diego took the first of 162 games with a score of 5-2.

You can bet that Albert Pujols will not allow this type of scenario to ever take place again. San Diego is left to revel in the rarity of this Opening Day.

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