On occasion I'll listen to a classical/jazz radio station here in Indianapolis. It's a little bit different though, as they sometimes will give detailed sports stories during the hourly news. Every once in a while they'll even throw in a sound clip from Peyton Manning or maybe a Pacer. During lunch on Wednesday, I hopped into the car and just as I started it up, I heard this snippet:

have lost eight straight games

I hit the button for the a-ha station pretty quick on that one. I'll try to put a stressful week behind me and have some fun with a few silly stats I've dug up. With apologies to David Letterman and Harper's...

1 -- Number of two-out RBI hits from Junior Spivey this season at Memphis. He had that hit Thursday night. The weird things you learn while listening to Memphis Redbirds games online when the Cardinals have a day off.

31 -- Jason Isringhausen's rank among all relievers in expected wins added. That's major league relievers, not Cardinal relievers. Yes, Izzy's been valuable to this point. Don't ask how.

9 -- Rank of Scott Rolen's OPS among qualified NLers. Welcome back, Scottie. Albert Pujols is first, of course. Yadier Molina is 4 PA's short of qualifying, but he's dead last among NLers with 200 at-bats.

13 -- Rank of Cardinals' 2B in OPS. Somehow, some way, that's better than Boston (14th and home of Mark Loretta), Kansas City (24th, Mark Grudzielanek) and Minnesota (26th, Luis Castillo). OK, I'm not counting on that lasting either. Dear Tony, please give Hector Luna more time at 2B against right-handed pitchers.

28 -- Juan Encarnacion's OPS advantage on Reggie Sanders. On the other hand I count only six qualified major league batters (Yuniesky Betancourt, Jay Payton, Jeff Francoeur, Angel Berroa, Juan Uribe and Clint Barmes) with fewer walks than Encarnacion.

6 -- Number of stripes showing on Anthony Reyes's socks. This conforms with the dress code the Cardinals impose on their minor leaguers. Dear Anthony, make a statement and start wearing your pants like Chris Carpenter.

-88 -- Number of days between Dontrelle Willis's and Anthony Reyes's birthdates. That's a convoluted way of saying Reyes is three months older than Willis.

1 -- Number of qualified major league pitchers with DIPSes worse than Jason Marquis's 6.04. Unfortunately Scott Elarton isn't scheduled to pitch this weekend for the Royals. Even if you're not a full-fledged fan of baseball's gourmet stats, the ingredients of that number are not good.

1.07 -- Jason Marquis's groundball-to-flyball ratio. That makes him something of a flyball pitcher. Forget about the bottom line for a moment. What is he trying to do out there? It's hard to believe Reyes is the rookie and Marquis is a half-season away from free agency. I'm rather tired of putting apostrophes on names ending with the letter "s", but I've got one more in me...

16 -- Number of baseball months since the Cardinals had a losing record for a month. Barring something strange Friday night, that string will be snapped. The last time it happened was July 2003, as the Cardinals went 13-14. You have to go back to July 1994 to find a full month (April - September) as bad as June 2006. When you get plopped in the head with a big hunk of something unfamiliar, it's OK to assume the sky is falling. The best news of the month was Pujols's home run the day after his return from the DL:

It's always nice to get some confimration that the "5" is in fact an "S".