Beat the Best, Lose to the Worst

There are many things I don't understand about baseball and probably never will. One is the multitude of ways a balk can be called, but almost never is...it always just seems so arbitrary. Another is why managers are recycled so often, as if the guy might just get it right with his fifth different team after bombing with the other four. Or why Tony LaRussa hits his pitchers eight most of the time now.

But one that seems to happen all the time is playing great against a tough team only to get swept by a crappy team...only to play well against a great team again. The crazy ups and downs of baseball are just astounding.

Take the Cardinals last several games as an example.

They play three against Philadelphia, NL East leaders who were playing really well...and started the series off with a 20-2 pounding of the Cards...no, it was an anihilation...or something tremendously awful. Then, STL rebounds to win the last two, taking the series. Pretty good against a hot, 1st place team.

Then the Cards take on Kansas City, perennial bottom-dwellers of the AL Central. Should be able to take this momentum and beat up on a bad team, right? Apparently not. STL got swept. Yeah, swept, not just lost two of three. Swept. And that leading up to playing the Red Sox in Boston.

Great, Boston doesn't lose at home. They are, like, 56-2 at home or something and we are coming off of getting swept by the Royals...not looking good. Without Albert my faith in the team is similar to my faith in the Royals. But that's not how it turns out, is it? The Cardinals were within one bad JD Drew throw of a sweep of the Sox themselves...IN Boston.
What?!
How does this make sense?

I know there are reasons within reasons in any single game. But it is just weird how this happens. Going 4-5 against those three teams, I would have thought a sweep of the Royals would have been in there, not a sweep BY the Royals.

Crazy baseball.