By Alex Cohn – Associate Editor

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Apr 26, 2011 -

(Sports Network) – The St. Louis Cardinals head to Houston Tuesday for the start of a three-game set versus the Astros searching for a fifth consecutive winning series.

St. Louis can count just four losses among its last 14 games after a rough start to the year and is coming off Sunday’s 3-0 win over division-rival Cincinnati. Yadier Molina belted a three-run homer to back a strong start by Jake Westbrook, leading the Cardinals to victory in the rubber match of the weekend set.

Westbrook (2-2) yielded just three hits and three walks in six innings, striking out four to help St. Louis win for the fourth time in five games overall. The bullpen made the effort stand up as Fernando Salas, Eduardo Sanchez and Mitchell Boggs set down nine of the final 10 batters to preserve the Cardinals’ third shutout of the season. Boggs worked around a Joey Votto double in the ninth to record his third save.

Molina’s blast off Reds’ starter Edinson Volquez in the sixth inning was one of seven St. Louis hits. Molina and Lance Berkman had two apiece.

“Every time you hit a home run, what do you want?” Molina asked rhetorically. “You want to be mad? Or sad? No. You’ve got to enjoy it, man. Especially me. I don’t hit a bunch of home runs. Every time I get an opportunity to enjoy it, that’s the way you have to play this game. Fun.”

Looking to keep the Cards’ positive momentum going this evening will be 24- year-old southpaw Jaime Garcia. Garcia has won three of his four starts to this point in 2011, last defeating the Nationals on Wednesday with five innings of four-hit ball. He allowed three runs, but just one was earned. It was the second consecutive five-frame outing for Garcia, whose only trouble so far has been high pitch counts in the last two starts — reaching 101 and 91 respectively.

Garcia has faced the Astros just once in his career, a forgettable 18-4 shellacking on August 3 last season. The young lefty lasted five innings in that one, charged with 10 hits and eight runs — four of those earned.

As for Houston, it dropped the finale of a three-game series with the Brewers Sunday, 4-1, for its third loss in four games. The Astros’ bats were bested by the likes of starter Randy Wolf, who twirled eight effective innings in limiting the visitors to just four hits with no walks and four strikeouts to claim the win in the series’ rubber match.

Wolf faced the minimum from the fourth through seventh innings to keep Houston off the board, though J.R. Towles got a hold of one in the eighth and sent it over the wall in left-center for a 4-1 game. John Axford worked around a one- out single in the ninth to record his fourth save of the season.

Houston starter Wandy Rodriguez (1-3) surrendered four runs on 10 hits and three walks while fanning nine. The lefty lasted seven innings and had two of Houston’s five hits.

Bud Norris takes to the bump opposite Garcia at Minute Maid Park tonight. Norris will also be making his fifth start of the season but hasn’t experienced the same results as this evening’s counterpart. The 26-year-old right-hander has settled somewhat after a rough beginning to 2011 and worked six innings in a no-decision 4-3 win versus the Mets last Wednesday. He was touched for 10 hits but battled to give up only three runs with six strikeouts against a single walk. That followed a more impressive performance April 14 against San Diego where Norris fired six sharp two-hit frames in a 1-0 final to net his lone victory of 2011. He ended with seven strikeouts and three walks.

Norris went up against the Cardinals four times during the 2010 campaign, including opposite Garcia in the August 3, 18-4, Houston win. He was charged with all four St. Louis runs that day on seven hits over six innings. All told, Norris was 3-1 with a 3.38 earned run average versus the Cardinals last season. He’s faced the Redbirds just two more times in his still short career and sports a solid 5-1 record alongside a 2.27 ERA.

The Astros won 10 of the 15 matchups with St. Louis a year ago.

Less than one year ago Lance Berkman was one of the faces of St. Louis Cardinals angst; now he’s the face of a Cardinals offense that has seemed, recently, unable to do wrong, at least for very long. As Berkman returns to Houston for the first time since he was traded to the New York Yankees on July 31, 2010, it’s worth reminding ourselves one final time just how brutal Berkman was to the Cardinals. 

Berkman was a fierce hitter for the Astros—a career line of .286/.410/.549, with 326 home runs and 1090 RBI—but he saved a special venom for the Cardinals, against whom he hit .313/.415/.601. That peaked in 2001, when he hit .381/.466/.667 against them while a promising Cardinals rookie “only” hit .276/.394/.571 against the Astros. But he saved a little for the end of his Cardinal-antagonizing career, too, hitting .421 with a .577 OBP and two of his 14 home runs against St. Louis in 2010. 

If you’re looking for a reason to name Berkman an honorary Cardinal for life, I have one secret to reveal: The team he hit the hardest, slugging nearly .700 against them in 155 games, was none other than the Cincinnati Reds. 

The latest from Rick Hummel offers the St. Louis Cardinals’ position on Albert Pujols’s recent hamstring injury in nice soundbite form: John Mozeliak says the hamstring news leaves Pujols a “day-to-day” or “game-day decision”, and adds that it “does not sound like anything alarming”, which was probably not his exact thought process when Pujols came limping off the field against the Cincinnati Reds. 

Of course, that’s just how it is with Albert Pujols; he’s been wincing, limping, and coming up lame almost continuously since 2003, and it’s rarely serious enough to even occasion his removal from the game he’s begun limping in. Pujols might not be ready for the start of the Houston Astros’ series, but even given the Cardinals’ notorious struggles with estimating injuries—Brad Penny and Troy Glaus come to mind—it would be a surprise to see Pujols miss more than three games with this latest hamstring issue. 

Recent outfield transplant Lance Berkman and rookie first baseman Mark Hamilton are the primary candidates to keep Pujols’s spot warm in the event of an extended absence. 

By Dan Moore – Managing Editor

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Apr 26, 2011 - Former St. Louis Cardinals prospect Brett Wallace and recent tormenter Bud Norris are among the players the Cardinals will face when they reach Minute Maid Park for the first of three games against their one-time division rivals the Houston Astros. Wallace, currently hitting a healthy .324/.400/.451, is the team’s starting first baseman; Norris, who will get Jaime Garcia in the opener, has struck out 26 batters in 22 innings across his first two starts. With Albert Pujols’s hamstring injury leaving his near-term status in doubt, the Cardinals will rely on former Astro Lance Berkman to hold down the first base fort in his absence. 

At 8-14 the Astros have struggled as predicted, but no Cardinals fan is ready just yet to write off Bud Norris. On Wednesday Kyle Lohse will face J.A. Happ, while in the concluding Thursday action Kyle McClellan and Nelson Figueroa are the teams’ scheduled starters. 

For more and more verbose updates on the Cardinals, check out Viva El Birdos. 

Read More: J.A. Happ (P – HOU), Kyle McClellan (P – STL), Jaime Garcia (P – STL), Nelson Figueroa (P – HOU), Bud Norris (P – HOU), Brett Wallace (1B – HOU), Houston Astros, St. Louis Cardinals

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