Thoughts after tonight's game: Adam Wainwright's mastery and the Cardinals' need for offense

After they got their first series sweep of the season in Phoenix, the Cardinals' West Coast swing took a dive straight off a cliff. They lost their last game in San Francisco in a blunder-filled outing and got swept by the Dodgers. The series-ending 6-5 loss at Dodger Stadium was about as low as the Cardinals could get; Marc Rzepczynski capped off an awful series by grooving the hell out of a 3-0 fastball - with a lefty coming up next - and coughing up a go-ahead homer. I was so fed up with the skidding bullpen that I just turned off the TV after Jesus Guzman's 2-run double in Monday's game. But Tyler Greene hit a walk-off homer, the Cardinals won and things have been better since. 

They were good tonight, especially Adam Wainwright. I'm not going to say he looked like "old Adam Wainwright," because that's a stupid expression, as old Adam Wainwright didn't throw a shutout and strike out 9 guys every night. He was "very, very, very good Adam Wainwright." That's a new persona I'm making up. Wainwright was actually pretty close to not getting a shutout or a complete game when he walked Yonder Alonso to put two on in the ninth but he got Jesus Guzman to ground out. Very, very, very good Wainwright had every pitch working tonight. The fastball was nicely fast, the cutter cut, the curveball curved quite a bit and was at a nice low-70s velocity, its change in speed from Wainwright's other pitches adding an extra factor to its nastiness. The curve's always been an out pitch, but he could throw it for strikes, too, sometimes on the first pitch. But sometimes he threw it in the dirt because he could. Anyway, Wainwright's goofy smile after the last out told the whole story.

The Cards weren't exactly the offensive juggernaut tonight that they've been all year - one run came when San Diego's John Buck missed a tag at home plate and another on a botched tailor-made double play to short where Tyler Greene could reach - but they were good enough. With their pitching on a bit of a slide and an astounding trend of injuries ravaging the lineup, "good enough" will probably become the norm. Adron Chambers looked seriously shaky defensively, but he hit two balls hard back up the box and got a walk. His previous experience in the bigs should help, too, and hopefully he'll turn into a decent fit in Mike Matheny's lineup. Carlos Beltran and Matt Holliday both had good games; those two are going to need to start carrying the lineup with the absences of Lance Berkman, Allen Craig, Jon Jay and (maybe) Matt Carpenter. And unless the whole pitching staff starts hurling like Wainwright did tonight, the need for improvement is urgent - the last time the Cardinals scored more than five runs in a game was a week ago.