That was a Medusa-head series. You don't want to look directly at it for fear that it'll turn you into stone. A few thoughts on the edges though.

First, my gut says Jason Isringhausen shouldn't be asked to pitch more than an inning. Too many pitches for him to make it that long. So I went to ESPN.com, which takes a fair amount of intestinal fortitude these days, and looked at how his 2005 pitches per inning compare to some other closers:

Closer         IP    #P   #P/IP
Cordero       74.3  1209  16.3
Rivera        78.3  1186  15.1
Isringhausen  59.0   922  15.6
Lidge         71.7  1137  15.9
Turnbow       67.3  1049  15.6

Uh, never mind. That Rivera guy is pretty good, especially with the league adjustment.

Second, I really don't like Jim Edmonds being pulled as part of a double-switch. I'm going to assume that Edmonds will come around (and that LaRussa believes Edmonds will come around), because the alternative is also Medusa-head quality. Sitting Edmonds leaves the Cardinals' lineup looking like Pujols, Rolen and the Seven Dwarves in a one-run game. I understand that one of the Rules of Closer Usage is that the closer must be given a reasonably clear path to completing the game, but with one on, nobody out in the bottom of the 8th and one of the best hitters in baseball at the plate, there's a pretty good chance the Cubs will tie the game up. I don't have win expectancy tables, and I'm not sure they'd do much good since Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez are better than average hitters, so I'm left to guestimate there was something like a 40% chance for the Cubs scoring in either the 8th or 9th.

Finally, six games into the '06 season, it seems appropriate to me that the Cardinals' home opener takes place in an unfinished stadium, because the team that's playing in it is clearly a work in progress. I see a lot of misfits that will have to be shaped into Cardinal Baseball Players. It sounds like a recurring theme of American cinema, from The Dirty Dozen to other less memorable stuff. Among the newcomers, you've got the drunk guy, the fat guy, the guy who's too small, the guy who has some tools and no idea how to use them, the demoted guy, and the guy with bad facial hair. I think there's enough talent there to support the Big Three and the starting pitchers. I also keep thinking of how the Cardinals never could figure out what to do with the half-empty, half-full parts of the 2003 roster. Has LaRussa ever dealt well with this kind of motley crew?