Playoff Roundup: We Warmed Up For The 19th

• We had to run out to see In Her Shoes in the ninth inning of the Astros-Braves game yesterday. Brad Ausmus was coming up, so we knew we wouldn't miss anything. Anybody catch what happened? • Our favorite part of the game is that if the game went so long that Roger Clemens wouldn't have been able to pitch anymore, Astros manager Phil Garner was going to bring in Jason Lane to pitch. With the karma that team has right now, it wouldn't have surprised us at all to see him throw four shutout innings. • As we might have mentioned, we're pretty big Cardinals fans, and we'll just say that we've been terrified of a Cardinals-Astros rematch since, well, since Game 7 of last year's NLCS. • Oh, and in the other league, the Yankees and Angels probably just got to sleep in their hotel rooms about, oh, half an hour ago. Game starts in 10 hours, gotta be at the park in five. Whoever wins won't even have time for champagne; they've got another game tomorrow night in Chicago. We don't really have a problem with this, because we like seeing baseball players look like they're about to pass out. Good thing they haven't banned amphetamines yet. • We haven't had the heart to say much about the Red Sox's quick exit from the playoffs, except to reiterate this to Red Sox fans: You know how frustrating it was to have your team swept away so quickly after it had accomplished so much during the season? How nothing seemed to go right the whole series? That's how Cardinals fans felt the entire World Series last year. So welcome to it. • Now that the Braves are out of it, we've given up on being able to get walk-up tickets for the World Series. Sad. • We can't believe we don't have a day off before the two championship series start. Fans need rest too; instead, there's a deciding game tonight, the ALCS tomorrow and two games on Wednesday. Sheesh. Good thing they haven't banned amphetamines yet!