I don’t know what to say. It’s been over 12 hours since Jason Motte blew away Mark Kotsay, and I don’t know what to say.
Six years ago, the Cardinals staggered into the post-season with no expectations of going deep into it, and won the franchise’s 10th World Championship. That season was different; the club was coming off back-to-back 100 win seasons, returned most of its nucleus, and sat in first place from May 12 on. Only the way they finished made the title improbable.
This year? Ridiculous. They fell out of first on July 26th, and were left for dead after an ugly sweep by the Dodgers in St Louis in late August. Atlanta had to lose their last five games in a row in order for the Cardinals to win the Wild Card. And the Cardinals have kept winning; like a hockey team riding the hot goalie in the playoffs, St Louis has ridden the ‘every game might be our last game’ outlook straight into the World Series.
If you count only pennants since the advent of the World Series, St Louis trails the New York/San Francisco Giants by one for the most in National League history. They’ve tied the Dodgers with eighteen, again, since 1903.
All these years I’ve been bemoaning the addition of baseball’s Wild Card round. Guess I’ll have to shut up now.
A hearty congratulations to the St Louis Cardinals team for this memorable two month run, and to the Cardinals front office for being brave enough to remake the roster at the trade deadline. I was not a fan of the Rasmus trade, and I continue to harbor doubt it will pay off in the long run. However, viewed through the prism of this season it has been an unqualified success, and I was wrong to pooh-pooh it in July. Just another reason why I don’t work in a baseball front office.
David Freese is a worthy NLCS MVP, especially when he starts appearing in the same sentence as Lou Gehrig in terms of single-series production. In my humble opinion, however, the MVP of this series was the Cardinal bullpen. They suffocated the Brewers offense at every turn after Game 1. No way the Cardinals advance without the yeoman’s work everybody down there turned in.
I’ll work up a series preview for Wednesday, but my initial impression is these teams are more evenly matched than most think, from a starting pitching/lineup/bullpen/bench perspective. Allen Craig will likely DH, and that will make the Cardinal lineup MORE imposing, as Craig has been hot as well for the last month. This series may well boil down to defense. Texas has the third-best defense in the AL by Team Runs Saved; St Louis the sixth-worst in the NL by the same metric. Also trying to draw any conclusions because the Cardinals took 2 of 3 from Texas some years ago is fraught with danger. First it that series happened in 2004; second, of the players currently on both teams rosters only Michael Young, Albert Pujols, Chris Carpenter, and Yadier Molina appeared in that series. We might as well use a spring training series to prognosticate how this series will go.
It will be fun. Can’t wait.
