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Halfway Home

Posted on October 13, 2011 at 6:34 AM
Filed Under: Milwaukee Brewers | St. Louis Cardinals
If you are Chris Carpenter, at least you know just exactly what the offense is going to give you before you get too far into the game.

For the second consecutive Carpenter start, the Cards scored all of their runs in the first inning, jumping on Yovani Gallardo for four runs before the first frame was over.  After that, though, the bats went quiet as Gallardo figure out how to get the ground balls he wasn't getting in the first and the bullpen of the Brewers held the line.

Carpenter wasn't the Carpenter we saw versus Roy Halladay, but I don't think many of us expected that level of excellence again.  Carp was able to limit the damage and bend but not break, but he also was gone after the fifth inning.  Hopefully he'll be sharper next time out, whether that is Game 7 of this series or Game 1 of the World Series.

However, you may have heard that the Cardinals have this bullpen.  Granted, what you might have heard if you aren't a regular follower of the Cards is that the bullpen is leaky, unpredictable, and given to explosions.  That's not exactly true of the current makeup of the squad.

Fernando Salas, Lance Lynn, Marc Rzepczynski and Jason Motte covered the four innings after Carpenter left.  All of them had one thing in common--they didn't allow a baserunner.  None.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zero.  Cubs World Series titles since 1908.  Cubs World Series wins since 1945.

After Prince Fielder was intentionally walked by Carpenter in the fifth, 13 men came to the plate and 13 men went back to the dugout.  Flyouts, groundouts, strikeouts, there were different methods of retiring them, but the results were all the same.  On this night, the bullpen was untouchable.

That doesn't mean that there weren't causes for concern with the squad, just that they didn't come trotting out of center field when Tony La Russa made the sign.  Matt Holliday looked pretty rough on his last at-bats.  Holliday walked during the big first inning uprising, but otherwise went 0-3 with two strikeouts, both of which ended innings: in the fourth when Albert Pujols was on second and in the sixth when Allen Craig and Pujols were on first and third.  Getting extra runs there would have been a big deal, but Holliday not only was unable to come through, but did not look good in the entire at-bat.

Double plays, which had been recently fairly quiet for the Redbirds, reared their head again last night.  Yadier Molina rapped into one for the first two outs of the game (though that did drive in Pujols for the third run), Jon Jay hit into one after Carpenter had singled and Rafael Furcal had walked in the fourth, and David Freese grounded into one to end the seventh.  I don't like seeing that becoming a talking point again and hopefully the Cards will be able to avoid them in the next few games.

Of course, some of that credit has to go to Gallardo.  After the first inning, he settled in and started getting many more ground ball outs instead of balls that were being hit hard into the outfield.  If he had pitched the first inning that way, this could have been a much different outcome.

No matter how they got there, though, the Cards are now up 2-1 in the series and have a chance tonight to really put themselves in the driver's seat.  Kyle Lohse has had a lot of time off since Game 1 of the NLDS, and he seemed to pitch better down the stretch when he had an extra day or so.  Lohse pitched well to begin with against Philadelphia, but obviously made a key mistake on a pitch up to Ryan Howard.  Before that game, though, you have to go back to August 23rd--notably, right before this surge started--to find a game where Lohse gave up more than three runs.  In that stretch was a six-inning scoreless outing against the Brewers in Busch, an outing he'd like to repeat this evening.

There are things I worry about, however.  Rickie Weeks seems to be coming out of his postseason slumber, and I hate having a guy like that hitting behind the major threats of Ryan Braun and Fielder.  Gallardo was someone I worried about coming into the series, and that almost came to pass.  Another thing I worry about is tonight's starter, Randy Wolf.

On the face of it, Wolf doesn't look like something to worry about.  He gave up seven runs in three innings in his start against Arizona in the NLDS and also struggled some in September.  That said, he's one of those lefties that, at times, have bedeviled the Redbirds.  He was able to go eight innings of one run ball against the Cards at the beginning of September, which was even after this run started.  Not many people were able to do that to St. Louis in September, which means the Cards have to come to play tonight.

To be fair, either Wolf is on or he's really off when it comes to St. Louis.  He faced the team five times, and here are the results:

May 6: 5 IP, 6 ER (at SL)
Aug 3: 6 IP, 5 ER (at Mil)
Aug 10: 8 IP, 1 ER (at SL)
Aug 31: 5 IP, 6 ER (at Mil)
Sept 5: 8 IP, 1 ER (at SL)

If he's working on an on-off pattern, he's scheduled for an off game which I'd gladly take.  I expect that this will be another night where the Cardinals need to get to him early.  If he's allowed to get into a rhythm, they could be in for another one of those eight inning games, which would not be good.

Interestingly enough, Lance Berkman is going to sit tonight in favor of Allen Craig.  Berkman has never hit Wolf well and even though Berkman wanted to cry like a big baby (sarcasm, folks, sarcasm!) after being hit with a pitch last night, the career matchups and not injury are the reason why Craig gets a start.  Which means either he'll have to step up--his one hit in the postseason was big, but that's his only one--or Matt Holliday is really going to have to be on his game, because Pujols isn't going to see anything at all with runners on.  Craig's had his own struggles with Wolf, so this is definitely something to watch.

It's been a while since the Cardinals were in the driver's seat.  Let's see how they handle the car.  Hopefully we'll see them put the pedal down tonight with another win!

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WilliaminMaine | October 13, 2011 1:40 PM | Reply

Tonight's game can really go either way as you've stated very well. Expect Pujols to be walked at least twice tonight. Holliday is simply not himself and Berkman will be on the bench (don't agree with that really).

Kyle Lohse must be good and he must pitch six full or more innings.

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Heroes
Matt Holliday (5)
Matt Carpenter (4)
Rafael Furcal (4)
Carlos Beltran (3)
Jon Jay (3)
Kyle Lohse (3)
Lance Lynn (3)
Yadier Molina (3)
David Freese (2)
Jaime Garcia (2)
Adam Wainwright (2)
Lance Berkman (1)
Allen Craig (1)
Shane Robinson (1)
Fernando Salas (1)
Jake Westbrook (1)

2011 Top Hero: Lance Berkman (24)
2010 Top Heroes: Matt Holliday and Albert Pujols (24)
2009 Top Hero: Albert Pujols (28)
2008 Top Hero: Albert Pujols (25)

Goats
Matt Holliday (4)
Carlos Beltran (3)
David Freese (3)
Jaime Garcia (3)
Marc Rzepczynski (3)
Adam Wainwright (3)
Rafael Furcal (2)
Tyler Greene (2)
Jason Motte (2)
J.C. Romero (2)
Fernando Salas (2)
Mitchell Boggs (1)
Matt Carpenter (1)
Tony Cruz (1)
Daniel Descalso (1)
Jon Jay (1)
Erik Komatsu (1)
Kyle Lohse (1)
Victor Marte (1)
Eduardo Sanchez (1)
Jake Westbrook (1)

2011 Top Goat: Ryan Theriot (12)
2010 Top Goat: Brendan Ryan (14)
2009 Top Goats: Rick Ankiel and Todd Wellemeyer (13)
2008 Top Goat: Troy Glaus (13)

2012 Happy Flights
Happy Flights: 7
Happy Flight Opportunities: 12
Happy Flight %: 58%

Through 5/20

    Cardinal Nation Approval Ratings (March 2012)
    Adam Wainwright 91.9% (down 2.8%)
    Chris Carpenter 90.1% (up 3.2%)
    Lance Berkman 88.6%
    Tony La Russa 88.2% (up 17.4%)
    Yadier Molina 87.4% (up 3.7%)
    Matt Holliday 87.3% (down 3.8%)
    David Freese 85.5%
    John Mozeliak 85.4% (up 13.3%)
    Mike Shannon 85.3% (up 0.4%)
    Jose Oquendo 84.7%
    Derrick Goold 82.8% (down 5.0%)
    Mark McGwire 82.6% (up 20.1%)
    John Rooney 81.5% (down 2.8%)
    Mike Matheny 81.1%
    Bill DeWitt 79.8% (up 8.8%)
    United Cardinal Bloggers 78.9%
    Skip Schumaker 73.3% (up 9.2%)
    Jim Hayes 71.9% (down 4.2%)
    Jon Jay 71.1%
    B.J. Rains 69.5% (down 0.9%)
    Kyle Lohse 68.9% (up 13.8%)
    Dan McLaughlin 68.0%
    Joe Strauss 67.7% (up 10.2%)
    Ricky Horton 67.5% (down 1.6%)
    Al Hrabosky 66.4% (up 3.2%)
    Albert Pujols 54.9% (down 45.5%)
    Colby Rasmus 46.5% (down 35.3%)

    2011
    Dave Duncan 87.9% (up 0.9%)
    Matthew Leach 85.5%
    Pop Warner 76.7%
    Ryan Franklin 72.8% (up 3.1%)
    John Vuch 68.9%
    Jeff Luhnow 66.4%
    Dan Lozano 58.7%

    2009
    Rick Ankiel 83.9%
    Chris Duncan 69.1%


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