Well this past series in Busch Stadium certainly wasn't fun at all. The Braves were swept in the three game weekend set and extended their losing streak in St Louis to seven games. By losing all three games, the Braves allowed the Cardinals to creep back into the wild card race, now just 4.5 games back. Although the Braves are playing some terrible baseball right now, they do still hold that lead and are coming home for six games during which they could right the ship.

Friday night, the Braves developed an early 2-1 lead that held until it was extended to 3-1 in the top of the ninth. Craig Kimbrel's scoreless streak blew up in his face in the bottom of the ninth though. The Cardinals came back to tie the game up in the ninth and walked off on a Nick Punto sac fly in the tenth.

Saturday and Sunday's games were less heartbreaking but more discouraging. The Cardinals were able to get on the board with sizeable leads early on against both Derek Lowe and Tim Hudson. Lowe gave up four runs in the first three innings but pitched very well in the next three to let Atlanta creep back into the game, though ultimately falling short 4-3. Huddy let the Cards get out to a 6-0 lead and the Braves only managed to put up three runs in their comeback effort to lose 6-3.

There aren't a whole lot of encouraging statistics to take from this series. Prior to today's game, I figured I would be able to remark that Michael Bourn was a bright spot, having gone 6-for-10 in the first two games, but an 0-for-4 day today made his series much more pedestrian. Seeing Hudson give up five runs in an inning was probably the most troubling thing to me as he should be Atlanta's number one starter in the postseason. This was hopefully just a hiccup for Kimbrel and him over the weekend.