St. Louis Cardinals defeat Houston Astros 10-2 – MLB Update
St. Louis Cardinals outclassed their divisional rivals Houston Astros by 10-2 on Friday, March 4 at Osceola County Stadium in Florida.
Centre-fielder Colby Rasmus made two runs of three hits in three innings with one stolen base.
Forearm surgery driven Kyle Lohse took the steering wheel with 41 pitches in three innings. He forced four ground ball outs and two strike-outs but went for a high home-run by Matt Downs. It has been observed in the past that St Louis went 5-2 in games in
which he threw 6.0 innings or more.
"My limit was 50, so I didn't even get there," said Lohse, who gave up one run and three hits. "I've had three batting practices where I've thrown 40 pitches each time, so to go out there and do three wasn't that big of a stretch."
Rasmus made two-runs in the third along with a double against Houston’s reliever Brandon Lyon. In the second inning, Matt Cooper stole two runs off Ryan Rowland-Smith’s fast pitches. Ronald was gone to three straight hits after he forced Skip Schumaker to
walk away.
Ronald was playing the first spring start and second outing, pitched 1.0 scoreless inning of relief on Tuesday verses Atlanta Braves, while Brandon playing in second outing of spring received the loss in that game. He allowed one run in 1.0 inning also had
6-6 record with 3.12 ERA and 20 saves in 79 appearances in 2010.
"The results weren't there," Rowland-Smith said, "but outings like that, when you've got to work with runners on base and behind in the count, that's what makes it better at this point of the year. I'll take that."
The Cardinals put in a brilliant performance as they managed to restrict the Astros’ offence from scoring runs against their pitching line-up. The Astros will be looking to improve their performance in their upcoming match-ups.
The Astros will join the Cardinals at Roger Dean Stadium for a second game in as many days on Saturday. Cardinals will be the road team at RDS against the Marlins before another trip, this time heading west to play the Twins at Fort Myers. The Cardinals
finished 10 games over .500 at 86-76 landing in second place, five games behind division leading Cincinnati last year.
Houston are in the midst of playing at home on four consecutive days, Thursday to Sunday and eight of the next 10 days. Houston has some veteran pitchers for Saturday’s game waiting to make their mark in spring, including Wandy Rodriguez, Wilton Lopez. Houston
will face Detroit Tigers before the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday with Rodriguez as possible starting rotation.
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