Playoff Roundup: Sad Birds

Thoughts on a weekend of baseball that can only be described as "grueling:" • Now, we're Cardinals fans, we've made that clear, so grain of salt, all that. But the way that game ended yesterday was just flat-out mean. Whatever your thoughts on the umpires — we tend to cut them slack, because they live lonely lives on the road and are only noticed when people want to kill them — it certainly looks like the Cardinals are a beaten team. They're angry, they're frustrated and they're flipping out. Not a good way to pull it together for a Game 5. • Cardinals bloggers are already giving up. From Cardnilly: "Congratulations to the Houston Astros, your 2005 NL Champions. I ll be rooting for you in the World Series. This Cardinals team is done." Sigh. • We'll get into this more a bit later on today, but it's worth reminding everyone that if St. Louis can't shake off the grumblies and win tonight, Busch Stadium will be destroyed in a week-and-a-half without anyone really getting to say goodbye. Maybe that's what Jim Edmonds was yelling about. • By the way, we were scared that President George H.W. Bush — who had seats behind home plate for the two games at Dick Cheney Field — was going to throw up on Cardinals outfielder So Taguchi every time he came up. • Oh, hey, there was another series! • We kid, White Sox fans; don't hate us. We do think, however, that Ozzie Guillen's insistence on keeping his starters in until the end of games is bordering on the pathological. You know if he were managing the Astros-Braves game from the NLDS, Brandon Backe would have thrown all 18. • With the Red Sox last year and now the White Sox, well ... let's just say that though it has probably never been a good time to Cub fan, this has to be around there with the absolute worst. Only thing they could do now is trade for Ernie Broglio again. • Hey, is it just us, or did Ozzie Guillen pretty much make out with his bat boys when the Angels made the last out? • No matter what happens the rest of this postseason, everyone's lasting image will be of managers yelling at umpires. (Just saying, but the only manager we haven't seen yet yell at an umpire in either series has been Phil Garner.) We guarantee you more kids will be doing Billy Martin impersonations than Albert Pujols impersonations over the next week.