Author: David Medsker (Page 5 of 20)

Sorry, I went out, had dinner with friends, and actually had a life for a change. Did I miss anything?

Hmmm, I missed two home runs from Carlos Delgado, which means Chris Carpenter got knocked around. I came home in the top of the seventh, only to watch New York blow a two run lead by giving up a single and a walk to Albert Pujols and Jim Edmonds with two outs, only to watch Scott Spezio – the same Scott Spezio that was cut by Seattle last year – drill an 0-2 pitch over the right field wall, but Shawn Green got enough glove on it to keep it in play and limit him to a triple. Boom, tie game.

Cut to the top of the ninth and the Sandman, Billy Wagner. He falls behind to So Taguchi (2006 postseason stats: 1-1, HR, RBI) with Pujols on deck, so he grooves him a high fastball with a 3-2 count. Pow. So Taguchi, who had two home runs all year, has two more home runs in the playoffs. His slugging percentage at the moment is 2.000. Not too shabby.

The wheels would fall off Wagner after that. Pujols would double (it was actually a single, but Endy Chavez’s throw was so wide that Pujols took an extra base), Edmonds would knock him over on a grounder to second, and then Spezio – again, Spezio – drilled a double past Delgado down the first base line. Juan Encarnacion would then knock a base hit up the middle, scoring Spezio. Ball game.

Tony LaRussa had the luck of the Leyland tonight. Every person Leyland has inserted into the game has come through for him. LaRussa puts Taguchi in as a defensive replacement, and he hits a home run. Yeah, that’ll work.

Gamer 3: Steve Trachsel vs. Jeff Suppan

Did home plate umpire Tim Welke have a flight to catch? Based on the strike zone he was calling tonight, he clearly had a better place to be. He was calling strikes that were half a foot off the plate. It was like Atlanta in the ‘90s all over again, when John Smoltz and Tom Glavine (coincidentally, tonight’s starter for New York) got an extra four inches on each side of the plate. Even Jeff Weaver, the starting pitcher for the Cardinals, was upset when a bad pitch was called a strike when he was batting.

Curiously, Welke called a good game from then on. He probably thought he was squeezing Weaver, but in fact he was calling balls and strikes according to the rulebook of Major League Baseball. Fox’s equivalent to the K Zone was repeatedly showing balls out of the strike zone called as strikes. Welke’s gonna hate reviewing that video in the morning.

Cliff Floyd pulled up lame in the second inning rounding first on a fly out, and oddly enough, that turned out to be a good thing. His replacement, defensive specialist Endy Chavez, made a Web Gem-worthy play in left on a sinking fly ball that would have meant all kinds of trouble for the Mets. I’m betting Floyd won’t play again in this series, so this may cause problems for the Mets in the short term. But for this game, Endy Chavez was The Man.

For a series that everyone expected to be a series of 9-7 games, the first one was anything but. Jeff Weaver has been so phenomenal in the post-season, someone should do a DNA test to make sure it’s not his little brother Jared on the mound instead. Yeah, they showed a shot of Jared in the stands during the game, but come on, his cap was down low, that totally could have been Jeff.

So yeah, the runs. Paul LoDuca hit a single, and then Carlos Beltran, who has atrocious numbers in Shea Stadium this season, absolutely crushed a pitch from Weaver into right-center. The thing hit halfway up the scoreboard, a good 400+ feet away. That’s all they needed.

Expect more of the same tomorrow, when Chris Carpenter comes back from three days’ rest to take on rookie John Maine. Suddenly, this slug-happy series is turning into another pitchers’ duel.

It would always rankle me when the guys on ESPN would say that whoever represents the National League in the World Series is going to get slaughtered, but now I’m finally coming to grips with that assessment. Yes, St. Louis and New York thoroughly dominated their opponents in the NLDS, but their opponents (San Diego and the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles) looked so anemic that they may as well have been playing the Pirates and the Cubs. Will the NLCS be a blowout as well? The Scores Report handicaps the series…

St. Louis Cardinals
Strengths: Clutch hitting and solid defense. Their series against San Diego may have been lopsided, but it’s not as though they blew the Padres out or anything. They scored 14 runs in four games, a mere 3.5 runs per game. To win games like that, you need to play good defense, and that’s exactly what they’ve done.
Weaknesses: Their pitching is still suspect. Jeff Weaver was fantastic in Game 2 of the NLDS, but the Cardinals would be wise to lower their expectations for Weaver against a much more potent Mets lineup. Also Chris Carpenter will likely only get one start this time around, which means Weaver, Jeff Suppan and Jason Marquis will all have to step up.

New York Mets
Strengths: Sweeping the Dodgers allows the Mets to get their rotation back in line, meaning Tom Glavine will start Game 1. The everyday players also get a few extra days of rest, an invaluable currency at this point in the season. And speaking of those everyday players, the Mets have twice the bats that the Cardinals have.
Weaknesses: Pedro and El Duque are done, and Cliff Floyd appears to be headed for the shelf as well. John Maine pitched well in the NLDS, but the Mets are thanking their lucky stars they didn’t have to send Oliver Perez out to the hill, something that will be unavoidable here. The bullpen is tough, but they won’t matter if the starters give up ten runs.

Good for St. Louis for not crumbling in the playoffs the way they crumbled down the stretch. But it ends here.

Prediction: Mets in 6

For a moment, this one looked like it could be interesting. St. Louis ace Chris Carpenter, who walked a total of nine batters in the first inning all season, walked three in the first inning of Game 4 of the NLDS. And that was after giving up two singles. The Padres were given the rare gift of an ace pitcher out of sorts, his curve ball all over the place, and they exploited that situation to the tune of…two runs. Two, runs. With the bases loaded and one out, after Carpenter had walked in a run, Mike Cameron had to beat out a double play ball to plate a second run. And that would be it. Carpenter would regain his composure, and the Padres would go back to their flailing ways.

Here’s the most damning stat of the series: San Diego was 2-32 with runners in scoring position. Wow.

Watching the performance by St. Louis, along with the Tigers’ upset of the Yankees, is a testament to Tony Kornheiser’s adage that momentum is tomorrow’s starting pitcher. It didn’t make a lick of difference that both teams were on the verge of historical collapses at the end of the regular season. All that matters now is that they’re in the Show, and both teams are ready to play. Just like the White Sox last year.

St. Louis now heads to New York to take on the M*A*S*H unit New York Mets, who lost Pedro Martinez and Orlando Hernandez before the NLDS (anyone else out there thing Pedro is pretty much done?), and are now looking at losing Cliff Floyd to his lingering Achilles injury. What once seemed like a done deal for the Mets early in the season is looking like a mixed bag at best now. That should make for an interesting series, hopefully more interesting than either NLDS series was.

Okay, first thing’s first: Unless broadcaster Jon Miller was sick, there was no excuse for his lifeless performance behind the mic today. Now, I love listening to Jon Miller and Joe Morgan on Sunday Night Baseball, but he totally phoned this game in, sounding bored that St. Louis was losing and denying him the opportunity to talk about Albert Pujols for three hours.

In fairness to Miller, the game wasn’t terribly exciting. Chris Young took the Cardinals hitters to school, striking out nine in 6 2/3 innings. The vaunted foursome of Pujols, Jim Edmonds, Scott Rolen and Juan Encarnacion went 0-15 with seven strikeouts, including two from the impossible-to-whiff Pujols. Their only run came from a blast in the eighth by So Taguchi (!). I have never heard a St. Louis crowd as quiet as this one.

San Diego scored all their runs in one inning as well. Russell Branyan doubled to right, scoring Adrian Gonzalez and Mike Cameron. Branyan took third on Ronnie Belliard’s fielding error, then scored on Geoff Blum’s sacrifice fly. That brings the total number of runs scored by the Padres in three playoff games to…four. When they actually get hitters on base, they either choke at the plate– they hit four doubles today, but only one of them resulted in any runs – or they space out on the base paths. Witness Mike Piazza getting picked off at first by catcher Yadier Molina.

San Diego now has to face Chris Carpenter for a second time in Game 4. Uh oh. If the Padres have been saving their hits for a rainy day, this better be it.