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St. Louis Cardinals @ Colorado Rockies
Shelby Miller vs. Jorge De La Rosa
7:40 p.m. CT
Coors Field- Denver, Colorado
WARNING: LOTS OF PICTURES
Here's an a-typical recap for visual learners. I hope it works ok. It was a beautiful day in Denver. Coors field is very nice.
The Cardinals take batting practice. Look at Matt Adams go!
El Gallo sports particularly gallo-ish hair and flashes his winning smile.
There's a Joe Kelly-style standoff after the national anthem. Randy Choate can add another tally in his career accomplishments chart.
Dinger says hello.
Mike Matheny exchanges lineup cards.
Here's what they say:
Here comes the battery.
Matt Carpenter looks ready.
So does Troy Tulowitzki.
Jorge De La Rosa fires the first pitch. It's a called strike to Carpenter.
Allen Craig gets the first Cardinal hit- a single to right field.
Shelby Miller throws his first pitch. It's a ball to Charlie Blackmon.
After Blackmon singles, Miller tries to keep him at first.
But Corey Dickerson (walk, later caught stealing), Tulo (walk), Justin Morneau (RBI single), Walin Rosario (single), and Ryan Wheeler (2-RBI single) had other ideas. Rockies lead 3-0.
De La Rosa made quick work of Jhonny Peralta, Peter Bourjos, and Mark Ellis.
Rockies fans celebrated with slushies.
Carlos Martinez watches with interest.
Peralta helps Miller out of the second.
Tony Cruz takes advantage of a silly throwing error on De La Rosa. He then scored on a Carpenter sac fly.
Miller runs into trouble in the third. Rosario doubled, and then Shelby intentionally walked DJ LeMahieu.
He threw a couple pitches to De La Rosa, and his back tightened up on him.
He tested the waters under the watchful eye of the team docs and Matheny, and they determined it would be best for him not to continue. 
Enter Nick Greenwood.
In the fourth, Matt Adams singled to right.
Then Peralta whacked a dinger into the left field seats to tie the game!
Bourjos singled, and the later scored on a Tony Cruz groundout.
The thunderhead that dominated the skys was not amused. DOOMMMMMMM
A single and a walk set up Morneau to hit a 3-run homer. Rox lead 6-4.
The Cardinals had but one run yet to give. Matt Holliday doubled.
Then Allen Craig hit a hot shot to short. The batted ball seemingly found its way to Matt Holliday. I couldn't tell live in stadium, but by all accounts, it hit him and should have resulted in him being out. Instead, Tulo was charged an error and Holliday scored on the play, bringing the Cards to within one.
Seth Maness took over the pitching duties for the Cards with one out in the bottom of the fifth.
The action slowed through the top of the seventh.
Then, it sped up again. Sam Freeman was the pitcher.
After LeMahieu doubled, he was called out on a tag at third base. Walt Weiss kindly disagreed with the umpire's ruling, and we got to see an old-fashioned high-tech video replay. I thought he was safe. The throw beat him, but I don't think Carpenter got the tag on him in time.
The umpires took a look.
After a lengthy review, the call was upheld. DJ was out.
This Rockies fan was vocal in his disagreement.
Later in the inning, the bases were loaded for Tulo with one out. The hometown crowd was excited.
Tulo grounded to Freeman, who threw a low throw home. Cruz was unable to make the turn for the 1-2-3 double play.
At this point, my dad said "they just dodged a bullet, there. I'm not sure they can dodge two in a row."
Indeed, Morneau singled to right field, plating two more runs.
In the top half of the eighth, the Cardinals lit some fires of hope. Peralta walked. Bourjos singled. With two on and two out, Tony Cruz was lifted for this man:
Yadier Molina rocketed a line-drive single to left. It was hit hard enough that Peralta was held at third.
With the bases loaded and two outs, Jon Jay stepped in as a pinch hitter for Freeman.
The inning ended with Jay swinging through a high 94-m.p.h. fastball from old friend Adam Ottavino.
Jason Motte took over the pitching duties in the bottom of the eighth.
He didn't fare well. Drew Stubbs homered, and another run scored on singles by LeMahieu and Blackmon. Motte's night was through.
Randy Choate took the ball.
He got his one out without incident.
LaTroy Hawkins came in to close the game out for the Rockies.
Matt Carpenter appeared ready to take on the challenge.
He whacked a ball to deep deep right-center. It seemed a sure hit. Until....
Hawkins blew through Holliday and Craig as well. As a result,
A weird game, to be sure. But it wasn't all bad. A couple young Cardinals fans mostly enjoyed the game.
Final Notes-
- I know this isn't your average VEB recap. I hope people can fill in the blanks. I know there are several VEBers at this series.
- Here's some more traditional recaps: cardinals.com, stltoday.com
- Here's the fangraphs WE chart for the game
- Probably the biggest big-picture story of this game is Shelby Miller's health. I'm not very equipped to address that. In the stadium, it wasn't clear what was going on. I did see this, though, from Fox Sports Midwest, that might give some optimism. I'm sure more info will be pending in the next couple days.
- I found that it's impossible to capture everything on the photographic medium. "I'll take this pitch off," I'd say to myself. Pro-tip: those are the ones NOT to take off. I took 1071 images at the game tonight. On that note, as annoying as this post might have been, it could have been much worse! You're welcome. Also, many other photos are available upon request.
- When I go to live games, I try to keep a list of the different players' jerseys and shirts that I see. This is a running list (including Monday and Tuesday's games): Cardinals jerseys: Freese, Molina, M. Carpenter, Schoendienst, Holliday, Wainwright, Ellis, Edmonds, Robinson, Adams, Musial, Smith, Cruz, Walker, Pujols, Wacha, Eckstein, McGee, Coleman, Brock, McGwire, C. Carpenter, Herr, Rolen, Jay, Miller, Taguchi, Gibson, Matheny, Ludwick, Berkman. Rockies jerseys: Arenado, Gonzalez, Morenau, Tulowitzki, Holliday, Cuddyer, Fowler, Helton, Castilla, Rutledge, Belisle, Barnes, Torreabla, Bichette. Others: Jeter, Brett, Giambi, Adrian Gonzalez. Special shout-outs to a #15 Holliday and a #41 Molina.
- Tune in tomorrow as Marco Gonzalez will make his big league debut and will try to lead the Cards to a series victory. According to mlb.com, Marco will be opposed by Yohan Flande, so that will be fun.