Craig Dominates; Cards beat Rockies 9 to 3 in opener

Everybody surrounding Cardinal Nation has had some very high-hopes for what Allen Craig could do for this team when healthy and at one-hundred percent, full strength--well tonight, he gave us all a glimpse of it and continued to pad his numbers in a season where he has already missed playing time.
Craig hit two towering home-runs, both to dead-centerfield, and made a freakishly athletic defensive webgem to end the game; and helped his defending champion Saint Louis Cardinals defeat the Colorado Rockies at Busch Stadium by a score of 9 to 3 on Monday night.

Despite what a lot of critics say about the kid's power with the bat in his hands, he is shutting a lot of naysayers up. As I recall Albert Pujols stating last season, when he is healthy, he may even have more power than himself--and while you may not believe it, just watch and look at him. His two home-runs were numbers twelve and thirteen for the season--and flew a combined 854' feet, with his first flying 438' feet and his second flying out 416' feet.

The Cardinals got the party started in there part of the first inning with an RBI sac-fly to right field from Carlos Beltran that scored Jon Jay. Beltran, who came into the game leading the majors in RBIs, drove in two more runs--and now has 63 total on the season.

Matt Holliday homered in the third inning on the first pitch that he seen in the at-bat, and his thirteenth bomb of the season put the good guys' up by a score of 2-to-0 after two innings.

The only time that the game was really interesting was in the top of the fourth inning when the Rockies tied the game up on a two-run home run from Tyler Colvin--that also drove in Michael Cuddyer. The Rockies successfully held the defending champions scoreless after the tie game; but the Cards' scored three runs in the bottom half of the fifth--and put the score at 5-to-2 following a fielder's choice from Beltran--then the first of two home-runs from the man of the night, Craig.

Once Colorado tied it up at two apiece, and held the Cardinals scoreless in the fourth, Saint Louis scored in every inning the rest of the way through as they scored three runs in fifth, one in the sixth, two in the seventh, and one in the eighth.

Kyle Lohse, who many including myself believe was snubbed from the All-Star game, had yet another good performance and picked up his eighth win on the season; improving his overall record to 8-2. Lohse pitched seven-and-one-third innings, giving up just two runs on nine hits and struck out five batters. His ERA fell to 2.80 on the year and him being healthy is certainly making a big difference.

As for the Rockies pitching staff, they used four pitchers including starter' Josh Outman in the lost. Outman only lasted three innings and recieved a no-decision as he gave up two runs on two hits but walked five. Chatwood recieved the loss for Colorado though, as he pitched two and one-third innings, giving up five runs on four hits and fell to 1-1 on the season.

The Cardinals improved there overall record to 42-38 on the season while the Rockies fell to 30-49. The two teams will be back at it for the second game of the current four-game set tomorrow night at 7:15 pm Central Time as the Cardinals will turn to starting pitcher Joe Kelly to face off against the Rockies' starter Jeff Francis.