Those bad traits of the 2011 Cardinals — playing sloppy defense and grounding into double plays — cost them game one of the I-70 series Friday night. The Royals won 3-0.

Chris Carpenter pitched well for six innings, allowing no runs and five hits. And then came the seventh inning. Matthew Leach of Cardinals.com describes the turning point rather kindly:

The key blow came on a strange play. With Billy Butler on first and no out in the seventh inning of a 0-0 game, Wilson Betemit lifted a line drive to left center. Colby Rasmus, shading Betemit to the right side, gave chase. At first he did not appear to have a play on the ball, but as he got close it became clear he had a chance. By that time, though, Rasmus was caught in between. He made a dive for the ball but couldn’t corral it, and it squirted away from him for a double.

Cardinals fans on Twitter at the time described the play, and Colby, a little more … colorfully.

But the one play was just the beginning. Back to Leach:

That was the catalyst for an inning that quickly turned ugly. Brayan Pena’s sacrifice fly was the tie-breaker, and Chris Getz kept things going with a single to center. Alcides Escobar made it 2-0 with a single, chasing Carpenter. A walk and another sac fly, this one from Melky Cabrera, stretched the lead to three runs before reliever Trever Miller escaped the inning.

On offense, the Cardinals didn’t do much. Of course, this was due to Jeff Francis, who certainly wasn’t pitching like a guy with an 0-5 record. (He also was 4-1 against the Cards coming into the game, going back to his days on the Rockies.)

The best scoring chance came in the second inning. Allen Craig singled, Yadi walked and Jon Jay singled to load the bases and bring up Tyler Greene. Yet Greene merely upheld his role as the Cards fans favorite whipping boy by doing what 2011 Cardinals do in this situation: grounded into a double play. (So did Craig in the sixth, increasing the Cards already-league-leading total to 56.)

And something positive about Cards fans other favorite whipping boy, Ryan Franklin. He pitched a scoreless bottom of the eighth and retired the three Royals he faced on 11 pitches.

Back to Carpenter again, Matthew Leach had some interesting numbers:

Carpenter fell to 1-4 on the year, and the Cardinals are a stunning 2-8 in his starts — 24-12 when anyone else takes the hill. It was the fifth time in 2011 that Carpenter has turned in a quality start (six or more innings, three or fewer earned runs) and the Cardinals have lost.

Ah, well, CC, so it goes.

One other positive note from last night: the Indians came back from trailing 4-0 to beat the Reds 5-4.

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