Cards vs. Astros

June 1, 2007
St. Louis 8, Houston 1
Winning pitcher - Ryan Franklin (2-0)
HR: Gary Bennett (1), Juan Encarnacion (1)

Friday night's victory was the 1,000th win under the Tony La Russa managerial era.

June 2, 2007
St. Louis 3, Houston 8
Losing pitcher - Kip Wells (2-10)
HR: Jim Edmonds (6)

June 3, 2007
St. Louis 8, Houston 6
Winning pitcher - Jason Isringhausen (2-0)
HR: David Eckstein (2), Juan Encarnacion (2), Albert Pujols 2 (11), So Taguchi (2)

Pujols is definitely showing up again. Now if we can get the rest of the offense to produce, maybe he will get his 100 runs and 100 RBIs again this season like he has for his first six seasons.

Milestone watch:
Adam Kennedy needs 8 hits for 1,000 career hits.
Scott Rolen needs 5 hits for 1,500 career hits.
Jim Edmonds needs 23 21 hits for 1,000 hits as a Cardinal.
Jason Isringhausen needs 16 saves for 278 saves to tie Todd Jones for 23rd on the all-time list.

The Cardinals are in no rush to get Colby Rasmus up to the majors quite yet.

Lo and behold, as if playing the part of Roy Hobbs in the movie "The Natural," Colby Rasmus delivered, depositing his second solo home run of the evening — a tying shot at that, in the ninth inning no less, with two outs and two strikes — and then bashing his way straight into the next night with seven RBIs.

With that and a torrid stretch over nearly five weeks in which he buzzed along at a ridiculous .354 clip, Rasmus sent the dot-com commandoes of Cardinal Nation into a frenzy as fan message boards screamed for an instant promotion to Triple-A Memphis in hopes that Rasmus would reach St. Louis later this season.

However, the man who will make the decision to push Rasmus on to Memphis is not booking him on the next flight out of town. Rasmus entered Saturday leading the Texas League in RBIs (35), doubles (20), extra-base hits (31) and slugging percentage (.583). Oh, and he ranked third in home runs (10), too.

"I expected he would have success this year at Double-A; I didn't expect he would do it so quickly," St. Louis Cardinals farm director Jeff Luhnow said. "But we're in no rush to move him up. And it's not like he's going to regress in Double-A by staying the whole year."

Luhnow said the master plan entering the season called for Rasmus to remain in Springfield all summer, and he would like to stick to that plan, mainly because Memphis' abundance of outfielders, notably center fielders Skip Schumaker and Rick Ankiel, need at-bats should St. Louis come calling.

The Cardinals presented their Roger Dean Stadium employees with World Series rings.