A Wrap and a Look Forward

It’s been a busy week for me, with having to drive a hour and a half to an audit every morning.  (Usual commute to the office–8 minutes.)  So I’ve not had the chance to finish up the regular season and look at tonight’s start of the NLDS.  Let me see if I can’t do that extremely quickly. Saturday: 5-4 Loss

Hero: Brendan Ryan.  Three for three, scored twice, drove in run.  Did have a baserunning glitch, but all in all, did as much as possible to bring home a win for the Cards.

Goat: Rick Ankiel.  No hits in four at-bats, struck out three times, left five men on.

Notes: Albert Pujols almost got the goat, also going 0-4 and left four men on.  Plus his normal aggressive defense failed the Cards in the decisive inning, as he was too far off the bag and wasn’t able to get there before Kyle Lohse, causing neither of them to catch Julio Lugo’s throw.  A catch ends the inning with the Cards on top.  Instead, Milwaukee took the lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

Sunday: 9-7 Loss (10)

Hero: David Freese.  Not only did he go two for three and drive in three runs after coming into the game, but he took on the challenge of making his professional catching debut when the Cards, who have three catchers on the roster, ran out of backstops.

Goat: Todd Wellemeyer.  The home run to Prince Fielder that put the Brewers ahead in the ninth was bad enough, but to allow two more runs in the 10th?  There’s only so many comebacks a team has in them.

Notes: If nothing else, it was good to see this team battle back.  They kept getting down, but they never gave up.  Even in the ninth against Trevor Hoffman, they had good at bats, drawing walks and getting the tying run across.

The Cards slumped badly down the stretch, going 2-7 in their last nine, with the only wins being the clincher game pitched by Adam Wainwright and Chris Carpenter’s offensive explosion game in Cincinnati.  While I don’t think that stretch runs are necessarily indicative of post-season performance (unless you’ve had to win your way in), it’s not the most comfortable feeling in the world to limp in like that.  Then again, that’s about what the ’06 team did, so who knows.

The slate is fresh today , though, for the opener of the NLDS.  If nothing else, the fact that the Dodgers didn’t exactly tear it up the last couple of weeks should help Cardinal fans feel a little better.

There are a lot of keys for the Cardinals in this series, but here’s what I think the biggest is: finding the ability to hit lefties.  The Dodgers will throw out two in the first two games, against St. Louis’s biggest weapons in Carpenter and Wainwright.  If you’ve read my interview with Feeling Dodger Blue , you know that the bullpen is actually one of LA’s biggest strengths.  The Cards can’t afford to get into a battle of the bullpens.  That’s a good way to wind up losing one of the Big Two’s starts, games that the Cards are going to have to win to have a chance for the trophy.

So the Cardinals have to find a way to score some runs earlier in the ballgame behind the two aces.  If they can get a 3-0, 4-0 lead for them, odds are they’ll take the games and be in great shape for the series.  If it gets to 0-0, 1-1 in the seventh, when Tony LaRussa’s having to pinch-hit and get creative, there’s a good chance the Dodger bullpen shuts them down and they come back to St. Louis behind the eight ball.

It’s a late game tonight, Carpenter vs. Randy Wolf.  Good luck to the Redbirds!

Daniel Shoptaw is the founder of “C70 At The Bat,” where he regularly writes about his beloved St. Louis Cardinals.  You can find more of his work here .