Cardinals-Royals: The Good and the Bad

It's hard to complain about a series sweep of any kind—especially a sweep of the Kansas City Royals. However, from this point on, I am going to try and sum up every series with a list of the good, and not so good. Hopefully there will be way more positive subjects to bring to attention than negative. Well, let's start with our recent sweep of the Royals.

The Good

A lot of good came out of this series and hopefully will continue into New York this week. The most obvious of the good, is the offensive production that accounted for 29 runs in the three-game stint. Eight long balls left the ballpark off of the bats of Ankiel, Ludwick, K.Greene (3), and Pujols (3).

More importantly, however, is the fact that Ryan Ludwick finally provided some protection behind Pujols by blasting his first-career Grand Slam Friday night off of Kansas City starter Kyle Davies. All Cardinal fans have been waiting and waiting on protection behind Albert; hopefully Ludwick, or K. Greene, the way he is playing, can be that security blanket. Speaking of Albert, he didn't have such a bad series himself, adding three long balls including his third Grand Slam of the season.

I couldn't mention the good without mentioning the performance of Chris Carpenter. Although it isn't the first time he has had a great outing this season, it was still worth noting. Carp gave up only one earned run Saturday and only allowed three hits. His ERA currently stands sub 2.00 at 1.53.

The Bad

Hmm, not much to think about here as overall, it was a great series for the Redbirds. One thing that did worry me (not the first time this has happened) is Adam Wainwright's start.

Wainwright gave up five earned runs on eight hits and two home runs, not near the quality of stuff that the Cardinals will need every time he takes the hill. Pitching for a Cardinals team that has struggled to score five runs a contest before this series, Wainwright can't afford to give up five every outing.

I would love to hear your take on the good and the bad of the KC series as it will help develop my thoughts on upcoming "The Good and The Bad" posts.