What A Performance By Kyle Lohse

What a performance indeed. Kyle Lohse surprised all baseball fans with a great start for the St. Louis Cardinals. It looked like Josh Johnson and The Miami Marlins would have an easy victory once word that Chris Carpenter wouldn't be the opening day starter for The Cardinals. Kyle Lohse pitched 7 and 1/3 innings giving up just 1 run on 2 hits and collecting 3 strikeouts.

Kyle Lohse pitching in The Marlins home opener

Perhaps the most interesting part of this game was the suspense of a possible no hitter from Kyle Lohse. Lohse kept the hit column at 0 for the Marlins through 6 innings when eventually Jose Reyes would get a hit off of the right hander. Another interesting part of the game was how Josh Johnson would perform coming back from an injury. Johnson didn't perform terribly, but he performed at league average: 3 runs over 6 innings with 10 hits and 2 walks. The elevated WHIP is what eliminated Johnson from pitching into further innings, because he had to use more pitches.

Another important part about this game was how The Cardinals performed without Albert Pujols. The combination of Beltran, Holliday, Berkman and Freese made up for the absence of Pujols. These four players flow nicely in the lineup. Beltran got two base hits and scored one runs, Holliday went 0-5, Berkamn had 1 hit, 1RBI and was also intentionally walked 2 times, and Freese came through with 3 hits and 2 RBI's. Freese is the dark horse in The Cardinals' line up.

The Cardinals will play the Brewers in Milwaukee on Friday and The Marlins play The Reds in Cincinnati today.

Marlins Ballpark didn't see much excitement from The Marlins on Wednesday night.