First the good news for the Cardinals.  Mitchell Boggs won his first major league game in his first career start as the Cards beat the Reds 7-2. Ryan Ludwick 4 for 5 his 15 th homer and 4 RBI.  Rick Ankiel back in the lineup hit his 9 th homer of the year and Albert Pujols hit his 16 th of the year. 

Now the bad news.  Pujols tapped a grounder to the right side, pulled up out of the batter’s box, strained his left calf again.  Manager Tony LaRussa says Pujols is going to miss time.  A trip to the disabled list is highly likely.  ESPN was reporting that the Cardinals contacted Chris Duncan and expect to bring him up from AAA Memphis.

Back to Boggs. He got plenty of run support early as the Cardinals scored four in the third inning as Brendan Ryan and Ryan Ludwick doubled to score Ryan.  That followed with Pujols’ home run and then Ankiel followed with his solo shot.

The Cardinals added a run in the fourth when Ludwick doubled home Ryan again.  Ludwick would hit a solo shot in the 7th and drove in Ryan for the third time of the game in the 9th with a base hit.

Boggs tossed five innings giving up two runs on four hits, three walks and a home run to pick up the win. 

With a 6-2 lead, I thought Tony LaRussa may have been sticking it a bit to his longtime nemesis Dusty Baker.  After Ryan got on in the 9th, LaRussa had Skip Schumaker sacrifice bunt him over to 2nd, then had Ryan steal third to set up Ludwick’s RBI single.  Either LaRussa has no faith in his bullpen with a four run lead or he was just adding insult to injury.  You don’t bunt and steal third with a four run lead.