Cardinals Soar High in World Series Victory

It is hard  to admit that I was wrong, but I was. I didn't believe. I thought there was no "team of destiny," I thought there was no way that the Cardinals could out hit the Rangers. I was wrong. It was after game 6 I knew I was wrong, it was after the Ranger bullpen that I touted as the better of the two gave up TWO, not one, TWO two run leads in the 9th and 10th inning that I knew I was wrong. As soon as Nelson Cruz decided to go all Bill Buckner on his team and blow game 6 with a terrible defensive play I knew the Cardinals were going to be World Series champions.  So before I continue, congratulations to the St. Louis Cardinals, you earned it.

The entire World Series was actually watchable this year, the first time in a long time that I have seen such passion about two teams, not many people in my neck of the woods (Upstate New York) care about. Sure you have those people who "just. love. baseball." but I'm talking about the casual fan, tuning in for every game, in fact every pitch of every game. The kind of fans who don't know any of the players names, except for the stars, and who, with every game, learn something new about the manager or second tier players. Heck, even I was bored to death by Rangers vs Giants last year.  But this time I didn't want to miss a pitch. 

Part of what played into that is the story of the St. Louis Cardinals. It has been said so many times over the last month that I'm only going to mention it once: they were 10.5 games back a month away from the postseason and they won the World Series. Those of us that don't believe in "team of destiny" stuff have to stop and think that MAYBE just MAYBE there was something more than just "momentum" driving St. Louis. Just look at what transpired in this World Series. Game 2: The Cardinals blow the game after manager Tony LaRussa, pulls his closer, the Rangers tie the series at 1-1. Game 3: the Cardinals, (or as they could be called for that game, the St. Louis Alberts.) blow the lid off Texas in an absolute drubbing. Game 4: Rangers win, by SHUTTING OUT the red birds in a pitching gem by Derek Holland. Game 5:  the so called "Phonegate game," a game that the Rangers won after a screw up with bullpen phone caused a mismatch, that Mike Napoli took advantage of. Game 6: St. Louis goes down it it's final strike of the World Series against one of the best closers in the game and David Freese hits a 2-run triple. Then, after a Josh Hamilton 2 run HR, Lance Berkman drives in the game tying run in the bottom of the 10th. Finally, Freese hits a walk off HR in the bottom of the 11th to win the game for the Cards. Game 7: It was all over but the celebration from the first pitch. After Freese tied the game in the bottom of the 1st inning the whole stadium knew what was going to happen. Eight innings later St. Louis had the trophy. 

David Freese won the World Series MVP after his
Game 6 and 7 heroics

The Cardinals shouldn't have won this series. They were beaten time after time by the Rangers and yet they wouldn't die. The Cardinals, as strange as it is to say, were the little kid on the playground that gets the snot beaten out of them but keeps getting up. Here's the thing though, that kid eventually wins the fight, whether it's through force or brains he wins, and that's what the Cards did: they won. 

Now, three days after the victory was completed another story line has emerged, the story of the end of Tony LaRussa's career. LaRussa, is without question one of the top 5 managers in baseball history. He has won the Manager of the Year award four times and has won three World Championships and is one of the few to have done it in both the American and National leagues. True greatness is found when the game changes because of one person, and with LaRussa that is the case. Before LaRussa's success no one would have thought to use a bullpen like he did, he changed the game and won while he did it. And in the end he got to go out on top. Congratulations Tony and congratulations to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Courtesy of MLB.com

The Battle of Bullpens gives Rangers advantage

The World Series starts tonight at 8p on FOX, the two contending teams have fought HARD to get there, but no part of each team has fought harder then the bullpens.


In the NLCS Tony LaRussa was forced to use his bullpen at an almost unbelievable rate: 55% of the innings were pitched by Cardinal relievers. In only 24.1 innings the St. Louis starters gave up 19 runs to the Brewers, an offense that does not measure up to Texas' in any way.  It is obvious that if the Cardinals are going to win one of two things need to happen: their starting pitchers need to go deep into games AND shut down the explosive Rangers offense OR the Cardinal offense needs to out hit the Ranger offense. Ideally the Cardinals would exercise option number one, however the way they have been pitching throughout the playoffs it appears that, with the exception of any game Chris Carpenter starts, it is going to turn into a slugfest, followed by a battle of bullpens. 

The fact is that as bad as the Cardinal starters have been the Texas starters have been worse. In the ALCS Texas pitching gave up 25 runs, 21 were given up by the starters. The relievers gave up only four runs, on four solo HRs, the entire series. When Texas brought in a reliever the Tigers were completely shut down, allowing the Rangers to come back and win two games in extra innings. The premier reliever in the LCS was Alexi Ogando, who in four appearances pitched more innings (7.2) than all but two starters on both the Cardinals AND the Rangers, and those two starters got two starts. Ogando is the biggest weapon the Rangers have in the bullpen, in his 7.2 innings her had 10 strikeouts, compare that to the "ace" of the team, C.J. Wilson's 11 SOs in 10.2 innings and you begin to understand how dangerous Ogando is. 

Ogando isn't the only weapon coming out of the Rangers' bullpen. Mike Adams and Neftali Feliz have also dominated this postseason, with Adams getting a win and Feliz getting a save in the LCS. In fact, all four of Texas' ALCS wins came out of the bullpen. Normally I would say that this is a trend tat has to stop in order to win a championship, but this year I don't think that is the case. With Ogando, a pitcher who WAS  a starter all year and Mike Adams, a shut down reliever, ready to go at any time the Rangers pitchers can go out there with a "just don't blow it" mentality. Because with the offense they have that's all they have to do, to borrow a term from football, they simply have to "game manage" let the offense do what it does and win the game and the series for Texas. 


I believe that the starters for the Rangers will be able to game manage enough for Nelson Cruz, Michael Young and the Texas offense to win the series, with a little help from Alexi Ogando, in SIX  games.