After an absolutely insane 6-5 win in the first game against the Cardinals (I'll let Andy tell you about it later, as he saw the whole thing), we scored 3 runs total against Chris Carpenter and Jason Marquis, both of whom pitched complete games. Our offensive woes are back again - Craig Biggio is having a rough 2nd half (670 OPS), Ensberg and Berkman never seem to have good days at the same time, Jason Lane is still swinging at everything (.306 OBP), and Adam Everett, Willy Taveras and Brad Ausmus are all playing almost every day (668, 669, 667 OPS's), so we can't expect much more. If Luke Scott gets on a hot streak, that would be nice, as he's a possible source of left-handed power.

Anyway, we start a HUGE 3 game series against the Phillies today.

The matchups for the series:

Pettite vs. Myers
Oswalt vs. Lieber
Backe vs. Padilla

It will help to have Backe back, not because he's been that good this year, but because Zeke and Wandy have both struggled. But we're not going to go anywhere without an offensive resurgence. Let's hope we can get some runs tonight.

Andy Pettite in the 2nd half: 73 IP, 1.60 ERA, 7-2.